General

Final preparations taking place

Rowing across the big pond.

Tim Bradbury, 54, from Burgh by Sands near Carlisle and Mick Norman, 57, from Barrington near Cambridge, are taking on one of the toughest nautical challenges, rowing across the Atlantic.

The adventurous duo sets out from La Gomera in the Canary Islands on 25 January 2006. They will be rowing approximately 3,000 miles and aim to take 100 days or less to reach their final destination – Antigua.

Tim, a teacher for Visually Impaired children in North Cumbria, got the idea for this expedition almost two years ago during a sailing conference and was planning his own adventure. However,  towards the start of December 2005 Tim received a telephone call offering him a place in a boat, if he was fit and ready in eight weeks.

Intense fitness training, planning and many hours spent reading instruction books for satellite phones, laptop computers and how to operate the boat followed.

You can follow the progress of Tim and Mick via our diary updates at the bottom of this page.

The boat

Weighing around 500kg and measuring over eight metres long the rowing boat, called 'Frasier's Boat' is not the kind of vessel found on the local park pond.  Being self righting this home from home has to carry all the provisions for 100 days. 

The boat is around five years old and made of marine ply.

The biggest problem facing the two men will be the availability of fresh water.  Although they will be taking many litres of fresh water stored in the hull  they will have to process salt water to fresh using a process called desalination. 

The route from the Canary Islands to Antigue hopes should the trade winds and natural sea currents however using a two hour on and two hours off shift pattern the team must row an average of 30 miles per day.

A few luxuries

Getting out of the driving wind and rain is possible as the boat has a small cabin where you can get your head down behind a locked door.

A small camping type stove onboard allows for hot food, reconstituted  from the freeze dried packs or tea and coffee.

One of the first provisions packed, and some of the most important,  was two buckets.  These are to be used to bail out water and also to assist with the natural processes of life ...

Not alone ...

Throughout the 100 days expected at sea Tim and Mick will be tracked via satellite can call and email via sat phone if conditions allow. 

All this technology and the desalination plant will be powered by a solar array on board charging the batteries from sunlight during daylight hours.

In the event of an emergency the boat is equipped with a panic button.  This instantly sends out a mayday call. However, in reality, help could take many hours to arrive and Tim is keen to point out that this would only be pressed in a serious life threatening situation. 

Raising money for charity ...

To help focus the mind Mick and Tim are hoping to raise money for each of the four charities they are supporting, The Alzheimer’s Society,  Wateraid, Macmillan Cancer Relief and The Eden Valley Hospice in Carlisle.

Diary updates...

Monday 22 May

Tim Bradbury has finally finished his marathon row across the Atlantic.
The 54 year old - who's from Burgh by Sands - completed his 3,000 mile trek late last night, arriving in Antigua 112 days after setting off from the Canary Islands.
Along with his rowing partner Mick Norman, they've now joined the small band of explorers who have managed to get across the Atlantic on water using just a pair of oars.

20 May

Mick..
Last night was a strange affair the wind picked up from the north east and blew with incredible ferocity. We had just recovered from the shock I suppose of finding out that our boat had been holed by the shark. We were creeping along with the wind howling arouind our ears. I knew from the way the boat was moving that any extra water we were carrying in the bilges though the lack of speed was puzzling. move on 1.5 hours and the same boat in the same wind is creaming along at up to 2.3kn. Its something in the water that's all I can say.

We have about 50nm miles to go and we have refined our approach to ensure land fall. A waypoint has been selected on the southern tip of Antigua. This will give us a track of 255 true. This is our finish point and effectively deliniates the start of the Carribean. After reaching there we will travel on 270 true for about 5nm before moving north to enter the harbour.

Tim and I have discussed how we wish to finish. We have decided that if all possible we want to row unassisted into English Harbour and onto our mooring. With family and friends meeting us at sea for the finish there is a danger that we could loose our resolve and accept a tow. We have explained this to Liz and Pat. I understand that Jonathan from the coast guard may well provide his services to meet us therefore it is only fair to him that he is aware in advance of our wishes.

Anyway there we were rowing along minding our own business when Cetlic Challenger, an Irish oceanographic survey boat hove into view. They spotted us from afar and came over to have a look at us. 'How you doing then.' 'Can we give you anything?' Now believe or not the thing we were really short of was coffee and sugar.' 'OK, thanks some coffee and sugar would be great.' 'Right we will put a pack to gether for you.'
The next thing we know we are hauling another fantasy hamper on board. Oh, no fresh yoghurt, cold real milk, brie, fruit, biscuits, soup, fish, fresh bread,coffee, sugar, etc, etc.

Lying there tucking into our ill gotten gains we were reminishing over some of the incidents we would like to forget like the problems with the watermaker. Tim commented that you must be really pleased, Mick that you were able to sort the problems and keep it running. Yes, I agreed its running like a train. No more than 5 minutes later it stopped unannounced. Tim and I looked at each other blankly, as if to say 'oh no, what have we done.' I've just checked it out, a broken wire in a terminal box, OK now, phew, no more talk of watermakers please Tim.

Hi Tim here,
We can see land and we both think we saw it first. I saw it and mike verified it but he then said he had already seen it when i was asleep.
Anyone who plays i saw the sea first as kids driving to a holiday will not be fooled by that one. There were some in our car who could see the sea at the end of our street. I wonder who?
I was just sitting at the back of the boat feeling a touch melancoly. How can that be? The megraine is coming to an end. Its so surprising how infectious a megraine can become. Probably our last night shift, the call "Tim, 5 minutes" and out of the cosy sleeping bag and back to the rowing. How can i miss that - but i will. I suppose because its because its a life never lived before and probably never again. Is it going to leave a hole or has it met a need.? Probably both. I have my new slippers bought but I'm not
yet convinced I'm ready yet to wear them.

Arrangements are being made for our finish as we estimate our ETA at the finish line. It will be so good to see Liz, it has been such a long time.
The amazing thing is that we have spoken nearly every day and sent each other emails. That has been so helpful to me. I would have really struggled without these good communications. (Thanks Les!!!)

The sky line is growing in size and the trip will soon be over. I hope that all the effort, pain, hardwork and commitment has been worth it. I think thats where the melancoly comes from. It has to be made .to have been worthwhile.

Shark Attack Update

Posted: 20 May 06

Late in the afternoon yesterday a large shark about 3 - 4m decided to have a taste of Fraser's Boat. A single attack occurred producing a piercing of the outer skin of the boat below the water line. The piercing also extended through into a small well just inside the hutch where we store the tools.
The piercing has resulted in the flooding of the lower bilge, an extensive but relatively small volume. Water has entered the toolbox area and is at a depth corresponding to the outside water level. No more of the other watertight chambers on the boat have been affected as far as we are aware.
The coastguard have been advised of the situation and is being monitored. We are continuing to row as normal. The additional water may cause a slowing of the boat but the handling has not been affected.

Ironically we had carried out a risk assessment the day before to determine what if anything could affect our ability to complete. Sinking was considered and thought to be unlikely. Hmmmm. The boat is infact very safe in that respect, the little devel would have had to have made matchwood of us to sink us.

The reason for the attack ? Who knows, terratorial incident maybe. Other attacks are known, one of the boats in the recent Woodvale Atlantic Rowing Race was attacked repeatedly on one occasion I remember mentioning it to Tim at the time. Tim's reaction was that it wouldn't hang around long with a flare up its ar.... We had the flare ready for any second attack!

I don't believe it - STOP PRESS

There has been a small eruption on Monserrat! No worries I am told apparently a 3 foot Tsumani has reached English Harbour. This is within the normal tidal range and has done no damage. Whatever will happen next.
We are not too worried about this wave as we are already in a swell in excess of 3 feet. It has now left Antigua and as far as we know caused no damage.

Shark Attack

Posted: 19 May 06

We have had a very productive night and an excellent morning the forecast east winds has materialised and is producing some impressive speeds. At one point I was hurtling along at a wind driven 2.7 kn. Probably as fast as we have ever gone. A more modest 1.6kn is being maintained. I'II say no more in case something changes. We are heading in a direction directly south of Antigua. We are adopting this approach in order to ensure that any adverse shift in the wind direction to the dreaded south is unlikely to affect a direct landfall in Antigua.

When I started the trip I had met Mick for about a weekend in total and the time we had together in La Gomera. That was taken up it the mad rush to get everything in place, fixed and ready for sea. There was no chance to evaluate our relationship and how that would be tested in all the challenges during the voyage. I remember being asked about this and said that "Randolf Feines on all his expeditions would never have gone with a friend but with someone with a shared goal". I didnt really know what that meant until now.
Mick and myself are completely different. Mick is methodical, practical, kind, tough, straight, full of endurance and grit. Never shirks a row, complains about his lot,. mentions his sore bits, or moans about me and my performances. He is a completely fantastic bloke. Are we friends for life? I'm not sure. We are so different, look at problems from a differnet perspective and at time have been known to bicker. I could make a negative list and I'm sure so could Mick. But for what benefit. Somehow we have created success from very little - a boat and a dream. The decisions we have made along the way, however reached were good ones and we are achieving success. Time will tell if we become friends. Respect, understanding and a shared "lifetime" will always be there. I hope the friendship will be there too but but the ingedient of dry land is needed to make that happen. Thanks
Tim

STOP PRESS - SHARK ATTACK!!!

Just when we thought it was safe to go in water!

Tim saw a fin next to the boat, he called me, I missed it, but next thing there was a wood splintering crash under my feet. Tim reckoned the fish was 4 m long

Suprisingly, we didn't imagine we were holed until we heard water slopping about in the bilges when we having tea.

There is a hole through the outer skin of the boat below the tool box area.
There is also a further hole into the tool box area. Diam of both holes is about 2.5cm. Water is up to level of outside water in the tool box area .
The boat is not sinking and the boat stability is not compromised. The low level bilge area throughout the boat is flooded but there is no water in any other area.

The coast guard has been informed as a precautionary measure but no action has been requested. In the unlikely event that the boat should sink we have a four man life raft. Sea conditions are not rough. We are back rowing and hope to finish as normal.

18 May Posted: 18 May 06

Row began January 29th 2006 at 12:12 GMT
   
Day 109 - May 18 2006 (19:39GMT) 17:27:36N 60:11:49W 25 miles (40 km) (22 n/miles)
Miles/Km rowed to date 3150 miles (5047 km) (2710 n/miles)
Miles/km from La Gomera 2829 miles (4553 km) (2459 n/miles)
Miles/km to Antigua 105 miles (169 km) (91 n/miles)

Hi this is Mick
As you remember we were left yesterday doing battlle with an se wind. Holding our own but not able to move directly toward Antigua.. Well every dog has his day and we had a bit of good fortune. Our energy sapping se wind came around to be a friendly ese pushing us along nicely and allowing us to re-establish our course direct course to Antiigua. Since them the wind direction has continued to be in our favour. We have now 99nm to go to Antigua and are maintaining a speed in the region 1kn in that direction. The battle is not over but the ne current which is causing us the problem is now sufficiently overpowered by our wind assisted forward motion. Wind speeds have to be maintained to eensure that we maintain our present direction. The forecast is still good, 4 more days with good strength easterlies. Sounds good to me.

From time to time we see life a death battles between dorado and some other fish, sometimes dorado is the prey or the attacher. I was at the oars yesterday afternoon when a dorado chasing a sprat the size of small goldfish leap vertically out of the water along with ithe sprat. They flew easily 15m into the air. back into the water followed by another leap of half magnetude. Who won I have no idea. In another instance a bird was flying along side the boat at night. We picked up its outline with the deck light.
It eventually landed on the hutch ventialtion hatch cover. I put my hand up toward the bird from inside the hutch and it sat on my hand. We weren't sure whether it was exhausted, we didn't see it again after that.

Hi Tim here,
Down to our last 100. That seems amazing when we have done 2900 miles already. Perception id funny as these last 100 seem such a long way. However things are changing on the boat. We are talking about which day to finish, we have weather forcats beyond that date, we have good contact with Antigua coastguard who is helping us with current directions and strengths, we have liz and pat organising and encouraging and it is changing how we think. It still feels a long way to go but i decided to try and start a list of positive things i'll miss when its finished. rowing - i love it when its fast, moonlit, warm and i have a mug of (cold) coffee

food - the food has been interesting and fun and i ahve enjoyed surviving on much less than usual and feeling well on it - Will it continue?Making a meal from nothing and it being enjoyable.

Time to reflect, time to myself, to examine and re-examine, feelings, fears, friends and fantasy
.
The weather - sunny days and warm nights. I just love it when rowing and suddenly a warm breeze flows over you as if someone opened a sauna door - fantastic. And of course the sunsets

The self imposed discipline and being able to do it The stress and coping. Putting pain aside.

i have loved the physical challenges - with me , the weather, the sea. i have loved feeling fit, strong.Sounds cazy but almost invincible. Stupid but in context nothing was going to overpower me and it hasnt. That feels good. I have loved the exhaustion at times. flopping to sleep knowing everthing was given and there was no more left. I cant do more than that.

To have rowed for three months with no more than 2 hours sleep and feeling good, strong, and happy.

I have enjoyed relying on Mick to do the same as me. Through out the trip neither of us have once pulled out of a rowing shift. Relying on him to look after me when I'm asleep.

I feel good about completion. If the boat sank now i would have still rowed this ocean. No one can ever take that away from me. Inside their is immense pride in doing what many thought was impossible.

I have loved as much as anything the support and confort given to me from family and friends. My colleagues have been immense and never will thry be forgotten. Names from the past have returned and reminded me of forgotten special times and places.

I cannot yet understand the belief in me from others who have never doubted capacity to see it through Liz especially. Thanks.

Sharing. Throughout the trip no oone has taken more than their share.

I'm sorry about that self indulgence but there it is anyway.

17 May  Posted: 17 May 06

The gremlins have been at it again. we are, guess what being pushed north by a strong ese wind coupled with strong ne running current. We are unable to hold a course at present to Antigua. The current system is extensive according to the coastguard. If we cannot reach Antigua we will consider our row complete when we cross into the Carribean north of Antigua. We would then be met by a tow boat as we cross the 'line'. If however conditions change in our favour we will do our best to reach Antigua unassisted.

Its late afternoon the unforecsat se wind continues to blow and continues to give us problems. We are fighting galantly to maintain our southerly position and winning. The forecast winds for the next few days could come to our rescue, Tomorrow an ese or e then a run of days, up to four where the wind will be from the east. Why to singing and fat ladies spring to mind!!!

A well known saying by Lance Armstrong extolls his view on life, Many people have quoted this saying which refers to pain only being temporary, We have this written out this saying on the ceiling of our hutch. Its particularly true in our case. The pain is there and will be temporary.

16 May Posted: 16 May 06

Over night we have make great progress southwards on a strong NE wind. By midday we had tracked 25 nm and taken off another 15nm ( 26nm on the whole of the last day). our Latitiude is now 17 40N. Still need to go a further 40nm south to bring us level with English Harbour. The NE wind is forecast to be with us for another 10/12 hours after which it will change to a easterly.
This will not give us sufficient time to reach our next way point but we are confident that can cope with this. After the way point we are advised that we must press on with all effort to maintain a predominately souitherly proghress , even dropping below the latitude of English Harbour. This will then allow for the ESE and SE winds forecast for later in the week when we will be hopefully on the home straight.

There is always a twist so at the peak of the NE blow with Tim exclaiming that we were making speeds of 2.8kn we were hit with a short sharp rain storm, the wind swung to the east and stayed there for a while, in the meantime the sea changed from a live think promoting our speed to one glueing us to the water. Speeds dropped to fractions of a kn, unbelieveable. As we write we are rebuilding the process and moving to pass our waypoint at a more modest speed of 1.2kn. Overal though we have had a fantastic day on the oars and will have covered the distance to the way point by tomorrow
breakfast a total distance of 52nm in about 1.5 days.

Over the course of our travels we have had two big pushes to make way south.Each time periods of southerly winds have forced us back north. This is our best push yet and we are now at a latitude of 17 37N. There is no hope for a further push if this one fails as we are getting ever closed to our goal, English Harbour. The forecast is in our favour so we are confident we can hold to the gains made on this occasion.

Looking on the GPS log I notice that we have travelled to date from La Gomera, can you actually remember that place all those months ago, 2855nm and we have 135nm to run. This brought it home to us, we are almost there but the task of completing those last few miles seems as great as ever, even after having one our best days on the oars. Its amazing that in a few day time we will be able to relax and remember the events of the last few months. It this all and nothing scenario which is so problematic. We have to put all thoughts of lazing by pools suppin' Rum punches and get the job
done.

I enjoy the rowing, so does Tim, particularly when we can have some sport, and I know what he means, but we both want this journey to end. We have to dig deep for our final reward. That will be some reward to.

Tim is outside on the oars giving himself a good talking to, you need to realign your mind to the task from time to time. This is obviously one of those moments.

On the culinary side things have improved enormously since the last drop. We have plenty of fresh fruit and nibbles. Rowing lends itself to snacking and having a pot of goodies to go at makes for happy rowers. All the breakfast cereals were mixed up into one big bag the other day. Plenty now for breakfast plus other snacks.

14 May Posted: 15 May 06

We are playing out the end game. The objective is to get to English Harbour and row in. Seems straightforward enough but nothing has been that straightforward. We have sea state, weather and currents to consider.

Its early morning and we are making steady progress on a track of 245 to pin point.
English Harbour. Pinching ever so slightly but holding the correct course . Current action is minimal at the moment but we are heading for a large current, a SSW we understand which we know to run through a point 17 52N 59 20W at a
massive 1.5 kn. This should help us to eat up the northings and we will stay in it as long as it takes. We are trying to find out details of it extent.

At the moment we are a position 18 21 N 58 45W. Our destination way point off English Harbour is 17 00N 61 47 W.

Therefore we have to make 81nm S and182 nm W (approx). A distance as the crow
flies of 190nm. Over the days leading up to arrival we will be monitoring these to see how we fare against wind and wave. Place your bets now will we get to or will we not. We can assure you we will go all out for the former.

Thank goodness we have another thing to worry about. I was getting very bored with "northings and drift".
I just would love to row into the harbour but near is great. I hope these currents do stay in our favour and the weather forcasts stay accurate. I've had my money on the harbour for 100 + days but eventually we'll see.
tx

As I finish off today's blog we are rowing against the effect of a 320 true going current. Its effect has been accentuated by the wind and waves during the day but its effect is now abating and we are starting to get on top of it. The forecst for tomorrow is a steady Easterly as opposed todays SE. This will help to push us along to our south going current and Antigua. Watch out for more news!

On the food front we had the last of the mangos today, still the pineapple, grapes , kiwi fruit, cherry tomatoes, oranges and numerous apples left. Things aren't so bad after all.,

13 May Posted: 14 May 06

Today we hve been putting into fruition the first part of the end game. The current which had been sweeping us north is still there but is less enabling us to go west if not south west.
The wind is SSE which doubles the effetcs of the current but so far hasnt been too steep to push us north.
In 50 miles our "current" experts predict a change of current direction in our favour..It should then begin to push us towards the finish. Nothing being taken for granted but in 2 nights our course has changed in our favour by 60 degrees. Its still there but weaker. I hope they are right about the change in direction.

Just before dawn today we met with Talitha -G, a huge beautiful motor yacht whos owner is one of the Getty family. Its a fare paying yachtb for ricch passengers. The crew were taking it to Barcelona for the summer. They were great and gave us food to help us along especially fruit and snacks. They were fun and chatty and i enjoyed the crack with someone else. I'm sure Mike did too. Oh Yes, we were asked aboard for a wash and brush up but declined again for the same reasons as before.

Modern mid ocean rendevous are arranged by email and sat phone as well as radio before either vessel became visible. Position, track, speed were swapped by email until we meet up. The night was so calm we just cam along side the vessel, up against some giant fenders and chatted over the side of the boat. The moon was full, just perfect. I didnt get emotional this time but it was a special moment. Great fruit salad for lunch today.

Anyway i must rest now cos im rowing soon and Mike will want to add something i'm sure. Lets hope the end game keeps playing. tx

Yes the rendezvous was really special. The ship came out of the night with navigation lights only and then in a a moment was illuminated liike a christmas tree as the deck lights all came on together. One of the acquisitions from the Tlitha - G , much to Tim's disgust was fishing tackle, offered without tequest. Its out tonnight so watch this space again for big catches.

We are making our way down to the ocean currentr clapham junction of the Atlantic Ocean, water is generally moving along with us at a track of about 310 to a longitude of 59W. We understand after that there is a chnge with flow heading off down SW which we hope to hop on. It will be a chnge for us to sit back and relax as the current does the work rather tha battling it out and going backwards when we stop..As we row along we come across streams of sea weed I believe these deliniate different flow patterns. All we know is to expect trouble when we come across them.

No rendezvous tonight we are full up of bananas, all we have eaten today it seems, for an uneventful night, we hope.

What a beautiful moon tohight with the path of light shimmering on the water.

12 May Posted: 12 May 06

Hi Tim here.
How much longer are they going to be? I can hear you all asking as you tired of our daily complaints about currents and wind.
This is our end game:
At present we are still being swept north but have 219 miles to go.
1. We have to break out of this current which is taking us north eveytime we stop and stops us from going on a track less than 300 T. We have had advice from Antigua coastguard and Tiny Little (ex rower) and both from their information say if we keep going we will come out of it "in a day or so". This was 11/2 days ago.The other side of this current is supposed to be a current going west.
2. In order to break free of the current and yet not lose too much ground we are pinching(going tightly to the wind) and this slows us right down. We are only going at half a knot. When we get out of the current this should free us up allowing us more speed in the right direction.
3. Next 2 days winds are Se which make things worse but after that 3 days of east or even NE. Both better for us allowing us to get close to our mark
4. All the above put together will get us moving south west towards Antigua. We will either make Antigua (a bit hard now after all these north miles we are still making) or cross into the Carribean as close to Antigau as we can and then cadge a ride down to the island.
5 Party ,party, party.

If things dont work out like this we'll find another end game.

Tonight we have a midnight rendevous with a yacht on its way to Barcelona giving us some food. What we would haave done without Liz and Pat organising things for us. Watch this space.

How long??
As long as it takes I'm afraid. we didnt come this far...........

May 11 Posted: 12 May 06

Not a lot good to say about today. The easterly turned out guess what to be south easterly, but then again had no power in it. We strayed into the grips of a ne current running at up to 1.5kn. Without the power to overcome it we have been fighting a loosing battle and tracking upwards of 340 true (intended track 256 true).

We have been in toch with Liz and Pat in Antigua where the coast guard monitor these currents, apparently there is a counter current of equal and opposite intensity about 12 mile south and 70 miles west if we could make it to there. Little chance at the moment. We are heading off in the direction of Florida and can only fight a holding battle to limit distance lost.

Food is also becoming an issue again with only 6 days supplies on board. We are investigating a further resupply but no concrete plans have been made. We know there may be a yacht heading out from Antigua soon Barcelona bound and the girls are trying to make contact with the owners.

In the meantime we plod on in the sunshine. Yes, it is a glorious day in all other respects. So not all bad.

9 May

We are not out of the woods yet, the forecast NE turned out to be SE! Tim has had a grump on, poor old me has had to take the brunt of that. To cap it all we have now run into one leg of a north going eddy line. This has not been good news. Tim is a less happy bunny and I am maintaining a low profile and just ghetting on with the rowing.

Food still provides highlights from the last food drop. Fresh milk, well UHT for me, Tim isn't a milk person and fresh oranges for pudding. Digestives and the last of the hob knob with our coffee after the evening meal.

Here's looking forward to a rewarding and exhausting night's row. Hope we have something more cheery to report tomorrow!

8th May

We have worked well today and pushed a little further "home" with about 25 miles done already. (Down to 275). Its right about the longest miles (Paula!) and we are forever pot watching and progress is small. We have decided again to stop looking ahead and choose smaller targets (250 next) and so on. Today we still havent had the east winds promised but the SE we were given were light enough to go west and south. We are still 75 above Antigua and it will be a big ask to bring them down to 0 but the effort will
be there no doubt. Mick and me are at opposite ends of lots of discussions and ideas but when rowing both know the way back home. If we can get some east or north east winds we will be pushing hard SW
towards the island.

Liz and Pat have been great taking care of the food drops. We may have enough food aboard now unless we have to endure another bout of southerlies which will delay us. In case of that happening Liz and Pat have found another boat leaving for Barcelona in 3 days. If we rendvous what ever the weather we will be ok. It will then be a case of trying our utmost to row to English harbour but crossing into the Carribean somewhere will have to do. I have become aware of the seriousness of this challenge for months and always believe that the goal can be achieved if we focus on what has to be
done and not distracted by the day to day events which if allowed would affect the longterm outcome. However if the winds do keep blowing strongly from the south how can we row south. I suppose doing the best possible you can is all that can be asked but for me sometimes only the full result will be good enough.. Mike is more realistic than me in an examination of the "end game" but just as determined to try for the harbour. Its a debate that rolls round my head when rowing at night when It all has to be given a perspective. I guess the crossing will be enough but its not what i would choose but the elements are the real bosses here.

Yes Tim and I agree that the end game is a row into English Harbour, we are 75 miles north of the entrance but the track to lay it is about 260 true and easily achieveable if we have a succession of winds from east and north east even light winds from east south east would be OK. The real problems are the southerlies which we have been dogged with for days on end driving us north. One catastrophic day we were blown 12 nm north. Another problem are the circulating currents patterns that that have caused other altlantic rowers extreme problems. We are not out of the woods yet but we are giving it our best. Tonight in the light airs and sea we have a free rein to wander where we want and have choosen a big southerly component in the course.

The food situation has lifted the stress levels. The first night after the drop we feasted on fresh roast chicken pine apple with masses of yoghourt. Quite unsettling in a funny sort of way and made me feel a little down. Anyway a further drop will be the insurance we need incase of anymore bad weather.

Oh Yes, don't forget to tune into Radio Cumbria at 7 45am for the latest news from Frasers Boat.

Missing Info until 7 May

Last few days have been a really hard time with the winds conspiring to drive us nearly 30 miles north. It would have been loads more if we hadnt just kept rowing sometimes at .1/10 of a knot for hours. to slip back at 6/10 every time a stroke was missed. A very hard time especially emotionally as we had hoped to be within range of Antigua by now.
Only 110 miles in 7 days its like we could be here for ever.
Today we should have east winds which are great but there is still a lot os south in themwanting all the time to make us miss the island.
All this conspired to us running seriusly short of food and out of range of resupply from antigua and no boats about and all the rowing that was going nowhere. Stress was huge until Liz and Pat arranged for a beautiful yacht to detour to our position and they gave us about 10 days rations. The yacht approached us at dawn and with its 12 paying clients in exclusive surroundings gave us food in a small inflatable boat transfer. I found the whole thing quite emotional and even refused a shower on the boat realising that we couldn't leave the boat until the job was done. We apologised for our rudeness and explained that it could dent our resolve. The skipper understood. It was an extremely strange moment. Their food has been lovely but has brought thoughts of nice things back into mind. We are determined to try and push again southish when IF !!! the weather changes. The forecast is good but it still blows from the south where we are. but always hopeful. 10 days to go ???????

6th May

Row began January 29th 2006 at 12:12 GMT
   
Day 95 - May 04 2006 (19:00GMT) 18:02:31N 55:08:28W 20 miles (32 km) (17 n/miles)
Miles/Km rowed to date 2830 miles (4549 km) (2450 n/miles)
Miles/km from La Gomera  2568 miles (4132 km) (2231  n/miles)
Miles/km to Antigua 375 miles (603 km) (326 n/miles)

Tim and Mick asked us to post this on the blog site as their power supplies are extremely low. They phoned us this morning

They are in the current and are trying to make headway south-westerly. They need some help from the wind and are hoping for a north-easterly or northerly wind to help them. Their food supplies were running dangerously low and would have lasted them until Tuesday. Luckily a passing ocean going yacht met up with them last night and gave them enough food to last another 12 days. Many thanks to them !! Hopefully this will give them the energy they need to complete the 300 mile left before reaching Antigua.

Tim and Mick are still in good spirits and are as determined as ever to complete this task

No updates missing between 6th and 2 May

2 May

It would be good to start off with something positive and we can. We have made steady progress today recovering some of the lost northings and at reasonable speeds. On the ground help is being sort at the Antigua Yacht Club in order to arrange a food drop. We are down to about 5/6 days meagre rations which will be sufficient to get us into range of assistance either voluntary or commercial, that distance is about 150nm. With that supply we will be able to complete the run.

Relationships on board are up and down under the stress but we will pull it out of the bag, no doubt. What other chioce is there!

The forecast for the foreseeable future is favourable with none of the squally weather of late which produces miraculous progress for in one direction or another for a short time and then messes up the sea for the next day!

Hi Tim here.
It looks good to me anyway. We will make it somehow and i always wanted to lose some weight. I'm delighted with the forcast hoping the SE are mild and then we can even pinch some south off them like today. We have had SE all day and still gone south.
The longer we go the more determined i am to finish. I've not rowed 2600 to
lose it with370 to go whatevr the currents. I think the forcast opens a door for us to get close enough for a food drop (Need to be within 150 miles) and close enough to hit one of the islands. Time to close this tging down. I want it done in 10 days. Watch this space.

   
Day 93 - May 02 2006 (19:25GMT) 18:04:52N 55:31:01W 23 miles (37 km) (20 n/miles)
Miles/Km rowed to date 2788 miles (4482 km) (2414 n/miles)
Miles/km from La Gomera  2529 miles (4070 km) (2197 n/miles)
Miles/km to Antigua 416 miles (669 km) (361 n/miles

1 May

Terrible night with squalls, ended up on the sea anchor losing 12 miles North and not much forward progress, a day to forget.

30 April

This trip goes on for ever. Over the last few days we have been subjected to a series of squalls which have made us use the parachute anchor to avoid too much drifting in the high winds. Unfortunately we have lost valuable ground made south as the curent, wind and waves push us north all the time. The Equitorial current is strongly pushing us north and our course is impossible to hold as its against the wave pattern as well as the elements. Today even an ENE wind has driven us 300deg T which is 35degs off course.

We have a small number of options. We have to try and cross the same longitude line as Antigua but at this rate will be quite a way north. A return to civilization from there would require a very long tow. We are making enquiries about companies able to help. Rowing this ocean has become very stressful as our food situation with all the delays is dire. Yesterday we shared a soup and a cake for main meal. A shared tin of sardines and some crisps for lunch. Breakfast is some survival rations and a spoon of jam. Not
the stuff required to row 24 hrs a day. We still have over 400 miles to go and our reserves are very low. However the wind direction may change and blow our way for once.

We really need a break now as we scan the horizon for another food boat.

29 April Posted: 30 April 06

Battery volts are low as a result of a stormy morning with not a lot of charging so a quick update.

We have made some steady progress today in some very squally conditions. Tim was able to have a bath in the swimming pool with the water that collected there and we managed a clothes wash in the not so fresh water after Tim had been in it!

We are into the last 12 day food pack, a pretty mean supply, anyway heres hoping we are able to hijack some unsuspecting yachty with a full larder.

28 th April Posted: 29 April 06

Sorry about the lack of blog yesterday. Anyway it was a day to forget as we were battered a little by a frontal weather system which eventually forced us to deploy the para anchor for a few hours. When we set off the wind and currents combined to give us sereral hours of exhausting plodding challenging us physically and emotionally again. I say emotionally cos we have become pretty drained of reserves and dredging up a few more big efforts becomes harder each time. Yet through it we came and today has been better if not spectacular. Progress towards the goal seems so slow but we
keep looking for positive sign posts in mileages eg remembering when 300 miles had passed and i said we had done 1/10 of the distance. Well its now 1/10 to go.
I dont think we'll scorch it tomorrow as the forcast has some SE in it but it should be ok unless we are hit by one of these squauls again.

The delay last week has put us back on meagre rations again. If a yacht passes we'll ask for a parcel but there are few around. I had a chat to a French yacht the day before yesterday in the middle of the night but forgot to ask for food. It would have been difficult at 3.00 am. He told us some bad weather was imminent

Ocean Rowing and their Argos Satellite Tracker beacon has apparently failed on our boat. We have activated the spare so I hope the positions will return for your perusal. If nothing happens I hope we dont miss Antigua and start heading for Cuba as noone will know where we've gone.

The dorado escort is back with us, or maybe they never left. At night with the light from the deck light at least a dozen dorado can be seen just below the surface. During the day time dorado jump acrobatically leaping high into the air and landing flat on their sides. This maybe to dislodge lice or just to have a look at another world. Who knows. Today there was a big commotion as a dorado jumped followed by a marlin. They both came right out of the water, the marlin took chase with the dorado jumping several times before silence. Who won I don't know.We mentioned the other day about losing a
dorado which struck at our bait taking all the tackle.

Well Tim and I were both on deck, me rowing when a dorado jumped over my oar , hitting it in fact. Then we saw what looked like the remains of my fishing line dragged over the oar, it was the one that had got away showing us his new appendage. Tim and I felt really sorry that our actions had left it with this. We felt if it had landed in the boat we would have taken out the hook and given it its freedom. This is probably Tim's soft and cuddly streak or more likely his dislike of any fishy smells on the boat.

27 April

Low power today. Stormy showers, rain and swauls. Winds from SE driving us north. Better late on. No charging.

26 April

We had a good night last night managing to see off about 10 nm of southings.  Conditions are not so easy today but we are battling away with the intention of pulling onto the same latitude as Antigua by 31 April. That will give us the best chance of laying English Harbour. The forecast is not ideal for southing but is for settled easterlies again until the 31 April. Lets hope these remain so that we have an easy run in wind the wind on our backs.

Earlier when we were thousands of miles away we would have given anything to be 490 away. It still seems so far and i suppose we are so much more tired and jaded that everything is a big effort. It would be brill to row right into the harbour as this seemed such a long shot at one time.( optimism rules). I have had the first bout of the lurgy on this trip. I have been seen with the bucket far too many time today and yesterday. Still rowing though though i will desert my post if required. It just makes everything so much more tiring.

25th April

Is this the beginning of the end. At the moment we are trying to position the boat for an approach towards Antigua. We have recently been stopped in our tracks by severe eddies. These made such an impact on us because we were in light winds which if were strong would enable the boat to power through the eddy more effectively.

We have saught advice and seems that we had landed in an area which was a sheer line of the Equitorial Current. Theres much more to it, beyond me and this blog, but going south was the only sure way to avoid a repeat of the stop, start effect of rowing into eddies.

We were also about 90 miles north of Antigua with the ocean running passes the island, going north. Again we need to get further south or risk missing the island altogether which was a concern with all the southerlies of last week. For the last few days and a good forcast we have winds from the NE and E which has enabled us to push hard southwards. In the first 3 days we have gone about 36 miles as well as pushing about the same west. We are going to try and keep doing this emphasis on going south until we have only west to go. That would mean that we are giving ourselves a good chance to hit the island even the harbour. The harbour called English harbour, is on the south
of the island so we are going to try and aim about 5 miles south of this point. We think it will be easier to navigate more accurately if we approach from the south.

We can only go where the winds allow but hope with the current forecast to soon be in reach of the same latitude as the harbour. If we pinch a bit here and there and have no southern winds we are hopeful that even a row into the harbour is possible. We would love that but many rowers need a tow at the end so only time will tell. (Even Chay Blyth had a tow).

Mick is an engineer and ejoys his maths and informs me that if i multiply the sine of the angle by the speed i can tell if its quicker to go south at 1.6KN 30 degrees off west or 1.2 @ 40 degrees. Exactly thats what i thought.
However its now on a chart pinned to the bulkhead for perusal. My scheme is as follows. If in the morning i have to shut both eyes cos of glare we are too west. If in the afternoon my left leg above the knee gets the sun i'm too far south and in the evening if the sunset is directly over my shoulder we need to push a little the other way so we can see it better. However with a bit of luck the two together will produce the right result and we'll find antigua.

Its Mick, take no notice of him he's had too much sun. At 21 00hrs this evening we agreed to free off and hurtle down the wave front taking what ever speed we can get , we have to have an eye on the southings though and have set a maximum track angle of 260.

Fishing produced another lunch the other day before some whopper managed to take all the tackle. The problem is that the fishing tackle we have is just not up coping with the dorado. Getting them on the hook seems straightforward but the power of strike is immense.

The problem all along is how would I or we would row an ocean differently next time!! but will there be a next time would it be allowed!!! The trouble with ocean rowing is that it is usually a once in life time experience,there are very few what you might call experienced ocean rowers.

Certainly things could be improved, better seats and runners, better stove arrangements, better rudder and tiller arrangement, better storage arrangements, better more robust electrics designed for laptop and water maker loads, better water, maker arrangements with installed spare for instance, the list goes on.

I really hope that we can now go on to lay English Harbour in one i.e no tow in. We need the weather and no eddies, we need a bit of luck, the will to succeed is immense so no problems there. Tim is so keen to nail it this time as he would not have the nerve to request a further pass out.

Up to 24th April

Today things have been perfect.
I took over from Mick at 6.00 this morning and after another torrid night was expecting a grunt to "Hows things" but he had noticed some small changes in angles of wind and waves and within an our things were different.
The wind has been perfect allowing us a rattle along at 2.00 knots in a calm sea and in a direction that has put right our lost ground of yesterday.
For you who read this stuff it may seem that we are so easily depressed or elated and i suppose we are. However I have never been negative about the outcome and as things get harder i get even more determined to achieve the goal. We may not be able to row right into Antigua harbour but we will row the atlantic and get as close as we can to the perfect finish. Sometimes the perfect finish can seem a long way away when you are being driven way off course. But i have said many times the ocean always changes and today it was fantastic.

The Ocean Rowing Society has said we need to cross the longitude of 61.4 degrees West which is that of English harbour Antigua. That means that we need to cross north or south of the line is OK but the plan is still to aim for the harbour. If we have winds like today that would be easy. We are still so determined to finish.

Another first. Today we saw our first aircraft flying over us for nearly 2300 miles. It was quite a moment as if we are nearing some civilisation perhaps even on the way to Antigua.We have been really surprised not to see any planes or boats for most of the crossng.

600 miles to go.

A good 5 day forcast and trying our best to get south as well as west. Things happier on the boat now we are making progress and can see more positives ahead. Sorry if we were a little down but being here is different from anywhere else we have experienced.

21 April 06

Still hanging in there but conditions today were not helpful, strong current to the north east coupled with a wind with south in it, not really what we want.

We will continue to limit northings but it is very difficult at the moment.

To give you some idea of a typical situation, the boat heading at 04 00hrs was 210 deg true (almost pointing up the wave front) our track across the ground was 290 deg true, the current was running at 320 deg true at about 0.6 kt, the wind was 104 deg true. We are not clear what the current is, it appears to be the wrong angle for the North Equatorial current (more like 280) and could be a stray circulating current. We usually work our way through the circulation ones quite quickly but this is more persistent
making us believe it is a bit more serious.

20 April 06

Last night was quite something if you like rowing in a river. At times we were rowing and if we stopped for breath the boat immediately went NE not SW. Bit by bit the current changed its effect and direction, sometimes strong, then easing then north and eventually we felt that some progress was made as we held 1/3 Nm for a few hours, Its so hard to see an end to the 2 hours and then Mick comes to row and asks if things had changed and you could see the effect when the answer was "No the same". At about 6 am Mick reported that there was a change and in fact the current had begun to head
south, helping our course and tempers.

Today we have tried to recover our lost ground as we had lost 6 miles north but remarkably still had progressed 9 miles towards Antigua.The cost is quite high as the rowing becomes critical but ineffective. It challenges motivation, comitment and teamwork. it certainly has challenged our relationship but later tonight we meet for a whisky to celebrate the start of the finish. We know the job and its challenges and how much it may ask. At present we are about 80 miles (650 on total)N of Antigua which on our course of 265T takes us there. However on the way we have to cross the equitorial current which is currently running at 280T but increases as it moves north.

The eddies and currents which bashed us last night are at the edge of this current. Our hope is that once in the middle of the curent its effects will be more predictable and therefore more manageable than the eddies at the edge. Good news today we have regained the miles south and all day have steered a course of 255T or less and on a SE wind. If the wind turns more to the east or even ENE then Antigua looks possible. I am very optimistic that given a chance we can hit the target.

One more boat last night. Only worrying thing is our Seame radar enhancer and detector seems to have given up the ghost. Something to look at.

If we see another yacht we will probably give it a call to cadge some food as it is tight with no reserves if we lose any more time. Watch this space.

Night rowing has been enhanced beautifully by a moon full of peach colous and shimmer. Shame its waneing as she has been appreciated on lonely and frustrating nights

19 April 06

For the last couple of days we have made some small gains south against winds coming from the south. The seas were reasonable and some small mileage made in the right direction. Today the waves are much larger stopping us even rowing across the swell as they try and fill the boat or tip the rower off his seat. It was also true that where ever we rowed the waves ook control and took us there. The question is do we row quickly down the waves confortably but speedily in the wrong direction or uncomfortably across them still in the wrong direction. The wind was blowing to 310T.
We tried the sea anchor to check out if that helped but also to see if there was an influence of a current. We knew there was a strong push but were shocked to see that under sea parachute anchor (ltakin out the wind influence) we were still moving at 6/10 KN in direction 30T ie to the north east. We want go SW so the current is directly against us pushing us hard back and north. Chay Blyth said "If in doubt just row" and thats what were doing, hoping for the wind to change direction and the current to stop.
Time will tell what will happen but as we have said before nothing stays the same in the ocean.

Food is much better with our emergency ration blocks which tonight bulked up a choc pud as well as our porridge this am. I have sorted us out 2x12 day packs.

For those who listened to Radio Cumbria it wasnt me who wanted to talk about toilets. I wonder about next week.

18 April

Well we have had another torrid day, the wind is from the sound attempting to push us north we are resisting. Luckily the winds are light and we can still make some limited progress. However in the light airs we at the mercy of stray circulating currents that can really mess us about. At one stage we had an opposing current trying to take us east at about 0.4 kn. Not really what you want in these circumstances.

Last night we had a bit of excitment I decided to try my hand at fishing again. We had acquired some bait from the smaller flying fish landing on the deck. Not long after I put out the bait the sea started to hiss and crackle, we were passing through some sort of race, fish were jumping all over the place. A few minutes after that the bait was taken and we had a nice tuna alongside the boat. I am afraid however that is as far as it went I had my fingers into its gill to lift it but it gave one late flurry and was off
into the night. We are now into the second of our 12 day ration packs, one more to go
after that one. Tim has allocated all the recently acquired goodies so we now have a few treats and a bit more bulk. Part of the food are the life boiat rations not realy supposed to offer pleasant eating but very tasty with other things such as tinned fruit, jam, custard. We have also been allocated our own 12 day goody pack with biscuits nuts/raisins and crisps after that has gone there will be no more until the next 12 day period.

17 April 2006

Sorry about yesterday. It was the reality that the job isnt even near completed and much is to be done. An accumulation of fatigue and the need to complete and end this most punishing routine, provided the chance for negative thoughts to creep in the back door. Alec you are right - I'm not that complicated and just need to get on with it.

So we have decided for the time being to put being too precious aside and use positive tactics to achieve the goal.

All these southerly winds --- We lost ground if we went west so all night and during today we went pretty much straight south with a touch of west. The target was not to go north. We have made about 7 miles south. A very poitive response.

A strain on the food.----We had 2 x10 day packs left. That was easy we now have 2x 12 day packs. That was just so easy to stretch the rations. I (not we in this case) have enough to keep me going to the winter.

Missing Antigua. ---- Sort things out when we know where we will cross into the Carribean. We will have a ground team in place there to coordinate if a tow back to a harbour is required. By then we will have achieved our goal.

Not moping about --- Today has been a hard rowing day on purpose, better sweating than moping and the miles south prove it against the wind etc. Mick fixed the pump on our spare (and just broken) water maker. We both did our laundry and did all over washing and ate a good tea of mash and cod + american sardines, pudding was desert of survival rations ( like a thin porridge with custard powder), a choice of cold tea and coffee ( all soaked for ages to take the full flavour) and an energy drink. All to the background of Madonna.

The weather has been sunny and we have full water tanks and laptop is fully charged.

Still plowing on at .7 of a knot but one thing that is certain about an ocean is that it always changes.

16th April

We are stuck again with the wind and wave pattern contributing to a terrrible mileage day but worse than that a terrible direction day. Below i also enclose our forcast for the next few days that make the situation serious for us.
Date Wind Sea
16 16 s<>se 4 nw<>ne confused
17 8 s 4 nw<>ne confused
18 8 s 3 nw<>ne confused
19 8 e 3 nw
20 12 se 3 sw<>nw confused
21 16 e 4 nw confused

Right at the moment the wind is actually blowing from the SW and the way our boat points we are having to steer 310T which is only 50 deg from true north. This is miles from where we are wanting to go. The forcast shows little change.

The problems for us are as follows.
1. Again without the hoped daily mileage we will run out of food in 22 days.
2. Without a dramatic change of wind direction from the that forcasted we will be further away and further north in 3 days than we are now not 100 miles closer the finish
3 If we keep going north we may not be able to retreive the situation and actually miss Antigua.
4. Crossing into the Carribean will enable us to have rowed an ocean but what about our landfall, how far we miss by will determine whether a tow is viable or we find another landfall.
5. We cant use the sea anchor to help either as that is used to stop us blowing away in a gale across a sea not moving very fast. In this case the sea and wind are moving together so the anchor would just let the slide continue.
All we have done all day and what Mick is doing now is row against the forces trying to hold our position. Last count he was rowing 40 degrees off target at half a knot. Its mind numbing depressing hard work. We dont know what else to do other than keep working against it until it chnges in 3 days or more. (and nights).

It is all very difficult to put into perspective when we are both tired and  without reservation ready to stop and finish.

It all is a bit worrying especially as we can sense a growing imoatience from everyone including us to finish the job and get on. It is so frustrating as we have explained before being here without the normal wind and wave patterns designed to help.

We have prooved that when conditions are in our favour we can put a big mileage together but this is so frustrating.

15 April

Well the past 24 hours have taken us from the depths of despair and incomprehension to euphoria and the best meal we have had on board for a longtime.

After a good days rowing on the daytime shift on the 14 April we were assailed by a a strong ESE wind overnight which blew us way off track. All our efforts could not bring the effects of the wind plus the slightly northgoing current in our present position under control. We were swept off at up 300 true as our intended track no more than 265 true. A midnight conference on how to mitigate the effects had tension coming to the surface.
Not an easy situation when all around appears to be going wrong. Tell yourself that it is one day in many and not to get upset but there again we had worked hard to maintain southerly progress over the last few weeks and here we were seeing it frittered away in an evening.

We eventually agreed on a course of actioin and were able tolimit the northerly drift to
5 nm for the day.

We pressed on the following day with wind moving back to the E making our task a little easier. Things were a bit muted between us but we pressed on. These tensions between Tim and myself can materialise in the strangest way. A casual innocent
comment is taken out of context, a joke not seen a joke or taken seriously can lead to a few truths being exchanged. Tim Bunker one of email correspondents summed it up very well in his last email too us. There will be tensions but we are mature enough
that we can keep it in check. We are free to apologise and to make small the issues.

Another thing that has obviously made for depression is lack of food. Rowirg rations at night when were you are at your lowest were pitiful, breakfast after enduring that were then pathetic. Who can function on that, but we were and to my mind remarkably efficiently. Anyway I was pulling on the oars as I do during the morning when I noticed that we were about literally to be run down by a bulk carrier. The vessel was raised on our VHF radio. We explained the situation regarding food and asked if they could help with some rations. They were very helpful. Made up a couple of food packages for
us but how to get them to us in the end they were dropped overboard as we rowed past. Highly risky as we could have missed the lot. We went after the first parcel like a bat out of hell with me on the oars and Tim eyeballing both packages. We just missed the first one we were just 15m down wind with us being blown away from it. The contingency was for someone to swim for it
so quick as you like Tim was over the side connected to the boat with a safety line.A dozen frantic strokes later Tim had the package in his arms and I was abe to pull him back to the boat.
Tim here. Home truths indeed!!!!!
Anyway i think it was nearer 200m. (not really so theres no misunderstanding). It was a bundle of watertightish buckets tied onto old life jackets and contained tinned meats, biscuits, pringles, porridge like suvival rations, nuts, and all welcome. I have split them up to last us another 24 days into packs that makes a meal worth having. Mick said 2 bundles were thrown. the second one I took my eye off swimming for the first and when back on board we went in the general direction of last seen. Mick spotted it down wind making it an easy pickup with no more heroics. (I needed a good wash anyway).

Earlier in the blog we mentioned an American yacht which passed us called "Shearwater III" and they had given us some very basic things like peanut butter (it would have to be), crackers, rye bread coffee but not enough to finish make up he shortfall properly.

Thats why we used the radio to contact the vesssel today, Dorrick Spirit. The officers and crew were excellent and circled the rowing boat before throwing the
supplies over the side. You can imagine their amazement to see two old men ina 24 ft rowing boat some of the questions asked-
1. What are you doing here in the middle of the Atlantic?
2 Where is your mother ship?
3. Are you training for something?
4. How did you get here?

I did my best to explain and hope they contact us with their details so we can thank them properly.

Mick again; getting the extra food as made our time on board much more enjoyable, we still have to be careful with the food and ration it out over our remaining days but we can cope with that, its still cold, no problem. It has also made the problems with northing we are experiencing at present less important. Lets face it we are two old fellas having a great boating holiday. As long as we keep pulling westward we will bump into land somewhere.

14th April

Tim here,
Hope you are all having aa good holiday. I would just love a lie in or a walk to get the papers, a pint and a sit down without feeling i must be resting to row in an hour. Its a funny time now 740 to go right now. The last few days have been good with steady if unspectacular progress.The last 100 went in the 3 days and seemed to go quite quickly. We should go into 600s tomorrow if we keep going.
Thoughts about finishing times are always in our heads as we try to balance the food amounts put away in 10 day packs. We have 3 more of this pack left and all the goodies have gone, just basic small ration 3 meals a day. Today i was particularly grumpy with a lack of calories. I have started to drink coffee/tea (alaways black, no sugar) with a spoonful of sugar to finish the last 1/2 inch in the bottom. Horrible but needed.
We are also becoming more keen to finish with a landfall and row right into the harbour. We have to be lucky to do this but also in the right place to do it. So Mick is carefully plotting the right angles to approach Antigua from so we can row those last few yards. It wont be easy but maybe we'll be lucky. As well as going west we are trying to push just a little bit further south in case the sea current (Equatorial current) pushes us north. We are only guessing really but who knows. We are both desperate to finish but aware that even at this stage complacency could mess things up so are making as sure as we can that all the routines are followed which have served us well. Concentrating on now is better than aching for 700 miles to go.

13 April

A fairly unspectacular days progress hard work at the oars being pushed ever so slightly north but resisting without too much loss of speed.

The big scare story was the further failure of the watermaker. We switched it on as usual at about 11 am after the battery has recovered from the battering we give it over night. The water maker gave out a few tortured moans before we switched it off. Thoughts of midnight water hand pumping sprung to mind.

After a few checks and a reoiling of the winding! I realised that the problem was the pump itself not the motor. Jerry - note if you are still following affairs, this happened prior to the El Heiro Restinga incident when we landed there to sort out watermaker problems. There no problem was found. The problems on your (Jerry) row was probably caused by a seizing watermaker burning out the motor. Anyway I had fused down the ,motor because of the problems we had experienced earlier and this probably saved the motor. I changed to our spare pump and membrane which as circumstances turned out, post Restinga, was our original watermaker pump and membrane. Complicated eh. This is now working nicely but producing water which is ever so slightly brackish, we'll survive. This problem was also first detected at Restinga. Anyway fingers crossed we should now be OK for the completion of our journey.

This may solve the mystery of the missing power as we know now that the current drawn by the failed watermaker would have been excessive. No low low voltage alarms in the night now and failure of all systems, hopefully.

Hi Tim here. I was planning some midnight water pumping but at pres am being saved the work.

Rowing last night was impossible. The boat was rolling so much when you put in the oar there was no water and i would swing a shot like one of my cricket shots, a missed square cut, which unbalances and puts more pressure on the bum to stay on the seat. I'm back on sudocreme today. The boat would fall into black holes roll and the roll the other way to recover. Even worse when we gave up rowing the boat drifted faster on its own than when we were doing our rowing and even went in the right direction. What a put down that is after 2-3 months rowing practice.

Still trying not to look ahead as it unsettles when we think we still have a row to the alps to complete first. Still the 800s went quite quickly.

Hope we can have more power now the water maker is working better and write a few more replies.

Not only do have we learned to like cold tea and coffee but now it has to be with salt too. Some trip this!!!!

Ps all welome to join us in Antigua as long as you buy a round of cold tea with salt, half a meal and a cracker for pud (Yes 1). We are so used to it ow anytrhing else would be unwanted.

11 April

We had a nice sunny day today so the batteries have had a feast. Even so they are always just hanging on to life. Never really designed for the computer plus watermaker age. Lets just hope that thee sun continues to shine on us.

We have had a good day on the oars we reckon. After the porridge that we rowed in yesterday this was the cream. Shouldn't speak too soon we still have the evening/night to go. Hope it is reflected in the log.

The miles are coming off our total and we are tempted to think of Antigua arrival and all that, our wifes Pat and Liz have already booked air tickets (a necessitity as flights are getting full) to be there but probably it would be tempting fate to talk of dates in the blog.

This morning was Tim's seccond broadcast to BBC Radio Cumbria. A bit of a rushed affair caused by the previous guy rambling on about stopped up drains or something. Anyway maybe Tim will get more of a shout next Tuesday.

A few responses on the flying fish query (how do they stay in the air) Paula Mart states - Flying fish like most fishes, gets its power and speed from its tail fin which it moves from side to side with powerful strokes. Flying fish "glide" rather than "fly" through the air; they will swim very fast near the surface of the water, and if a predator is near, they will reach speeds of 15-20 mph and then break the surface of the water.

They briefly stay at the surface, using their tail to work up even more speed-beating
it in the water up to 50 times in one second!! They then accelerate to approximately 40 miles per hour, before rising into the air, gliding on their huge wing-like pectoral fins and escaping their predators. Since it is much easier to move through the air than it is through the water, the flying fish launch themselves from the water like rockets, leaving their predators far behind!!!

Tim Bunker and Albert Sillwood ( by the way you guys should remember each other from Solihull YHA days) have a high tech solution and refer to ground effects used for lift in some high tech planes. Sound s good. Hmmm , any more offers.

Tim here,
A few more boats appearing on out Seame radar detector but nothing visual yet apart from we saw our first yacht 2 days ago an American yacht going toAntigua Sheerwater III.

Weather back sunny again but our tans do not include the backs of our legs which remain sickly white.

Food is becoming such an event with the slowness awards going to me for making a choc pud (for breakfast last 20 mins nearly) and to Mi\ck for losing his lunch somewhere in his beard. A carton of jam is now a valued currency to be bartered.

Sleeping is becoming a problem as both of us are getting up to row to the "5 mins" call. No call given but I ot up twice in 2 hours without a call at the wrong time. Part of the fatigue problem affecting us both.

Mick continues to be uninjured but I have had quite sharp pains in wrists and fingers from tendinitus. I have been massaging with arnica which has helped but even after 2 hrs sleep the whole area becomes impossible to use until stretched and rubbed. Rowing doesnt hurt it at all unless its jarred.Time to put it in the "it doent hurt box" and get on with it but I thought I'd get some sympathy first.

9/10 April 2006

One odd day yesterday. We made so little progress during the day we never thought we would get anywhere near our target of 33 Nm a day but overnight we went like a train and made up loads to finish about 32 Nms. Today has been another really difficult slog so we dont know whats going on. We seem to be getting into currents which either oppose our direction or push us too far north for use. We are trying to keep a course which will take us just south of due west. Nothing seems good enough for us as we always seem to have a moan about something in the conditions. Well we still havent seen any of these legendary rollers accompanied by Ne - Ese winds 3/4.Sometimes the
winds try but the seas have given up in us and are making these last 900 les seem a very long way.

When we complete we will be the oldest pair to row an ocean. That has been confirmed by the Ocean Rowing Society. This is the first time being old has been OK.We still are hopeful for early May, right in the middle of Antigua Sailing week. That should be fun.

7/8 April 2006

Hi, Slow progress but still making some headway in funny conditions. Either flat calm or blowing hard as a depression nearby affects us. Trying to do 30 Nms a day but just short on average but will try and catch up when we get good conditions.
Short blogs at present as cloudy here, with rain so we are struggling to charge batteries and therefore the laptop. Making water takes priority with the power.

Radio Cumbria are going to ring the boat every Tues am at about 7.45 for about 7 mins chat. What a way for you to wake up. Listen on line those out of county.

Still hoping for a quick run in 930 miles to go.

6 April

Hope you liked the fish picture. Sorry it was a bit late in arriving. Since then all my efforts have come to nought even my smelly bait bucket contents got confined to the drink the other day. The sea appears to be devoid of the fish that we saw in the first half of our journey.

Yes, we are under the 1000nm to go point. We passed this at 16 15hrs this today. We had a good day yesterday 41 nm under our scoring system which has a start and stop time of around 10 30 hrs. We are also doing well again in terms of distance but it is hard work on a confused but productive sea. Things are easing a little now and we are hoping for a steady night allowing us to pull back more of the distance we lost a few days back.

I was looking more closely at the mechanism used by flying fish to maintain themselves airborne again, they are clearly not purely gliding as their flight path is too flat and only just above the waves. Are they using the wind to generate lift or are they using their wings , anyone got any knowledge on this one.

We had a small one flying fish land on the boat the other day and lodge unknowingly under the solar panel. I found it when I did a clean of the panels. It was about 5cm long and well dried out. We had half each with our dinner, times are hard! Tastes a bit like an anchovy hmmm yummy. Because of the 1000nm milestone we get to have cheese and biscuits again this evening plus a special drink maybe.

5th April 2006

Tim here,
The ocean is so mysterious, beautiful and powerful. Hows that for an opening!!!!
Last night we were struggling to go anywhere. Everytime we slowed or stopped to drink or change over Frazers Boat started to go due north taken by a mysterious force. The light wind and swell was in our direction, we were rowing yet with everything going in one direction the ocean wanted to take us somewhere else. Thats the powerful bit. It does with you what it chooses.

I have sailed a little bit off shore, away from the lights of a town and last night there were so many stars that it was awesome and mysterious. Never have we experienced such a view of the stars. It was a special piece of the ocean provided for us alone. No one else was sharing the performance it was a private showing. So far from anyone else with such a view was the mysterious bit - the whats it all about thoughts we have in similar situations.

The beautiful bit was the weather calmed, and calmed and calmed until there was absolutely no sea movement, ripple or swell. So far out and so peaceful - not a sound as the boat just stayed (still being pushed imperceptibly north) completely still and tranquil. The sea was a shining black mirror with each and every star reflected and shimmering. The moon had been involved in this until it sunk into the ocean somewhere on the horizon. The beautiful bit.

We just stopped and looked. We were being given a treat of such a high order and worthwhile being marooned, stuck and making no progress. A high in a low. (Add that to the discussion about highs and lows)

Hi Mick here - I can agree with everything that Tim has stated. We were infact treated to a remarkable experience. Trying to row in the flat calm was impossible, oars struck water surfaces like iron and the boat was stuck as if in glue. I was on the oars during one of these periods and ended up stretched out on the deck staring up in the sky marvelling at the incredible sights and the total silence, a silence that I have only ever experienced before in wilderness Canada, a silence so tangible that it could be cut with
a knife.

The other remarkable thing is that a morning which promised nothing has allowed us to 'power' on today at an average approaching 2 kn.

3/4 April

The dot day of yesterday has turned into two days. The wind is from the SE, not really normal but obviously possible, the sea is pudding and of no help to us. We are quartering to limit our northings but  we have turned to the north. Things were complicated by meeting adverse currents yesterday which necessitated that we keep rowing in order to avoid going backwards.

This is really interesting folllowing so soon on the tail of Tim's mullings, as he would call them, the other day. Is morale so fragile that this weather puts us down in the dumps. It would be true to say that we are a bit fed up, also it has blown a big hole in the programme for completion. However it is recoverable and we are looking forward to an improvement in the conditions that will allow us to complete some good mileage over the next few days.

This morning Radio Cumbria caught up with us and ineterviewed Tim live for Martin Plenderleth's Good Morning Cumbria. Some of you may have heard it, hope it sounded sufficiently buoyant. Althoiugh Martin commented to Tim that he sounded exhausted!

Our log shows 1060nm to go to Antigua, we are desparate to get down to that to those magic three figures. That leads on to the 1000nm to go service which we will give the boat. We have checked the rudder mechanism , OK no problem, we will check the bilges again and pump out if necessary, the water maker has performed well since earlier problems so we keep our fingers crossed on that one. We will be checking the filter and the intake to make sure that any little barnacle hasn't taken a liking to the intake pipe. That should set up for the run in.

We are still on the look out for more food and in view of our problems of the last two days will not be adverse to trying to cadge any extra food from pasiing craft. Problem there ain't no other boats!

Hi Tim here
I have been splitting everything up foodwise to last us the course, even the nuts and raisins. I was careful not to spill any but later spotted one I'd missed and ate it quickly before Mike wanted half. I'm not sure I recomment a rubber tip to my sun glasses as a culinary treat.

The radio was OK today  He said I sounded exhausted. I'm not surprised I'd rowed for hours during the night to stop us going into reverse. Hope I didnt sound too dull. Mick was asleep during it and I was worried that there might have been some inappropriate noises broadcast cos of our diet changes. Sometimes a noise will bring the other straight out of sleep to start rowing. Sometimes this is after only 5 mins from settling down as we become disorientated with tirdness. I didnt want Mike to begin and insist on an explanation of the time, who was supposed to be rowing, what time was it, what time do we cahnge, what direction are we going and so on. It would have been a fun broadcast.

If we dont speed up soon we could be here for ever.T.x

1/2 April 2006

A few good days when we have made some reasonaable milage.We have really enjoyed making good progress. The sea and wind were with us but still no rollers. Things are very different today with the wave pattern evrywhere making progress extremely slow. If we do 20 miles it will be lucky.. These changes and differences have got me thinking . (mulling) Today we have pushed harder and harder and got slower and slower. I have thought about wind direction, wave patterns, storm effects fron the north, ocean currents, rowing angles, compass directions and so on. I ahve also thought about how all these affect mood, efficiency, and morale.I'm not down in the dumps about today but thinking about how difficult it is to remain on a high whn
conditions change so rapidly. Morale is a difficult thing to pinpoint and say exactly what it is It would be imposible I suggest to feel the same doing 55 miles in a day as doing
20.. Its about how we feel compared to the task being completed. Its also about an acceptance of whats real in a positive frame of mind. I think that this is the important point. Its not the thoughts that effect morale but how we deal with them once those thoughts emerge.
When things go well I let (Or rather my mind does) my thoughts stretch out away infront and i look forward to meeting targets, completeing stages or even the finish in a number of days. This affects my mood, energy and my outlook. During last night the seas flattend, the wind dropped and we were left with a wallowing sea, which slowed progress to less than a knot. All my mind driven targets of the best day, the quickest 100 and a sooner finish slowly evaporated as dawn arrived with a pudding sea. It would be impossible to have the same thoughts about progress, targets and so on but its
important to deal with it and avoid becoming too down in the dumps. It would
seem so shallow to have a confidence so easily dashed.by something that could
have been expected. Mike has discussed this with me and does not feel particularly cheesed off thinking it as just a "dot day" which will be part of the whole thing. This led to an interesting discusssion about highs and lows.- if the highs are less, does
that make the lows easier. Does a low have to follow a high ? This is part of the process as we work around the issues remembering that it is just one day and important to keep the eye on the basics, rowing, sleeping, eating, etc. We are also in beautiful weather, in an incredible ocean, making a passage which few have even attempted. A wonderful event, with highs and lows.

Talking of eating ........

Food is completely sorted with a menu lasting 34 days Today menu.
Breakfast
!/2 bowl of porridge with essence of bilge water
I glass of fresh orange ( orange energy drink)
21 (according to Mick) currents and honey in porridge
1 cold coffee

Mid morning
single twix and energy drink

Lunch
1/2 expedition meal (stew)
! bag of nearly acceptable crisps

Main Meal
1/2 an expedition meal (beef in spuds)
a portion of 4 crumbled digestives with custard mix (our favorite)
Tea (cold)

Evening snacks for night time rowing
!/2 bowl raisins
I piece of fruit cake

We have sorted everything now so the above type of catering wil go on until we finish. We will review it every 10 days and adapt it as necessary. At the end nothing will be left. We are also using powdered milk to drink milk - yums and putting sugar in everything. We have a lot of high energy drinks.

If we see a passing boat worthy of a call we will chatto them over the vhf and see if we can cadge something. Only problem is that is lttle left if our plans go adrift but we'll deal with that if and/or when.
Take care t x

Hi this is mick. - . Tomorrow could be good could be bad , we are going to get dot days and that is a given. We have to take it and try not to get down. Today will be low mileage and hard graft as a result. Lucky we have the new regime menu to soften the blow!

30/31 March

Yesterday was my father funeral. In order to connect with my Dad and family in West Bromwich on this sad occasion we planned on holding a cermony on board Fraser's Boat to coincide with the funeral service. Therefore at 2.30 GMT we stowed oars. Tim and I sat in the foot well area.

It was quite emotional, I chatted to my dad told him what we were doing and I welcomed him to our Atlantic home, I introduced him to Tim and talked of our plans to complete our journey in his honour. I had prepared an eulogy which was to be read by my son Alastair at the funeral, I read this out. Tim then followed on with a couple of short pieces , an extract from Symberline by William Shakespeare and a poem Remember Me by Christina Rosetti. To complete the readings I read out a short poem entitled A reflection in mourning.

This was kindly provided by my local parish vicar, Neil Brice and formed a beautiful closure to the spoken part of the ceremony. We concluded with a two minutes silence to reflect on my dad's life.

During the ceremony the sun shone out of clear blue sky as we drifted to the tempo of the ocean. It was truly an emotional time and one which I will remember for ever.

Tim has been superb during the 10 days or so between my dad's death and the service. He has provided support and advice and is part in the ceremony was welcomed and appropriate.

Toa ll reader who have sent condolenses and messages of support thank you very much your sympathy and support have borne me through this difficult time.

Tim here:-
An inventory of the food has shown that we dont have sufficient foof to last another month without a drastic reduction in portions..Since we found out that there had been food lost we were hoping that our daily milage would incr ease to an extent that the food would last. This is not the case. We have tried fishing and seem either to be incompetent fishermen or the fish are wiser here than at home. Either way we have only caught one fish. Not enough to make up our larder. We have decided to do the following.
1. Split all existing food into 34 portions (time in days in which we hope to finish)
2. Contact every boat that is near during the day and ask them if they are able to help provide food without any commercial inconvenience.(I hope we see more than to present as we have seen only 2)
3. Fish and be lucky.

We have decided that unless conditions change we will not seek any outside organised resupply of food because a vessel could charge commercial rates for the time lost ihelping us if instructed by the Coastguard to give us support. It would not be seen as lives being in immediate danger.

I know I have a tummy to lose but its not the slimming but the fatigue which bothers us. We use loads of calories just being on the boat because of the movement and that doesnt include rowing. Its just something else to overcome which we will. At least we are able to plot some end to things.

Just think how things would change if we caught a fish of some size, were partly resupplied by a passing boat and found the help of the trade winds and its assosiated rollers. At least its positive still to be optimistic.

Mick - me less food, there won't be a lot left of me , thank goodness for all those expense account eveing mealsd in Haarlem prior to our journey Im knew the extra arond the middle would come in useful sometime. Mind you loooks as if its already gone!

29 March

This is our day 60 hope that agrees with everyone elses count. Can I believe that we have spent 60 days couped up on this rowing boat with Tim being rocked around continuously. I am really loking forward to the sensations of walking upright without fear of falling overboard, sleeping in nice bed thatis still, going to the loo without balancing on a bucket, luxury, ahhh.

As Tim said the other day we still have the business to finish. It will be done but will take a little more time. Weather conditions today have improved slowly to giveus reasonable progress, the night time phase of the row is always crucial as to whether we can build on the daytime total or water it down to something mediocre.

Tomorrow is the day of my dad's funeral. I have been in touch with my family throughout the last week and have prepared an Eulogy on behave of my family and myself. This will be read out by my son Alastair at the funeral. We will also be having a small ceremony on board Fraser's Boat to exactly coincide with the funeral in the UK. At precisely 2.30 GMT we will stow oars. After a small introduction there will be readings from Tim and myself and music. At the end of the ceremony we will have two minutes silence in honour of my dad.

The wake will be held in the hutch with cheese, biscuits and some more of the whiskey.

Tim here,
Its been difficult for Mick to work out the proper way of doing things under these conditions. I think he has done his best.

Some thoughts ahead:-
Looking forward to the Trade Winds blowing steadily
having less than 1000NM to go
sorting out the food problem
putting in an over 40NM days
seeing more wild life
making plans to finish

It still seems an almost impossible goal "Just 1000 NM to go!" err what?? As we progress each of the above will be ticked off and then we can luxuriate in Micks list .

28th March 06

We are so busy!!!!!!
Seriously I dont know where the time goes. We are both struggling with the endurances needed to complete this trip. We seem to be looking to sleep whenever we are not rowing or eating. Although we have passeed half way, that is demotivating as another the same would be a killer.What we are concentrating on are blocks of a handred miles which can ba ticked off in about 3 days. Soon we will have 1200 to go to Antigua and that means that in less than a week we will have less than 1000 to go, again ticked off in 100s. This seems more motivating than doing the same distance again.

We are becoming a bit more concerned about the amount of food left as the light airs we are in make our arrival less soon than hoped (Sounds poor)

26/27 March 2006

Hi everyone.
Sorry about the lack of blog pages but there has been loads going on.
The fish we caught was eventually eaten. We marinated it for 24 hrs in sea water and tried it with a chilli sauce. My first mouthful was boney and tough. We then ate the chilli (cold of course) washed the remainder of the chilli off the fish, cut it up into small strips and eatg the fish separately.and there we have it. Tea (or evening meal for some of our posher readers) of sushi, salty and OK. Trouble is we have no more fish to eat. only a tub of bait, which makes our rowing boat smell like a Whitehaven Trawler.The fish round here are also excellent at nabbing the hooks, the bait but not offering themselves for food.

Good and bad days.
Mick here,
The weather conditions have been a lot better for making progress. The seas are messy caused by depression in the North Atlantic but we are making the best of them and returning some good mileages though not always consistently.

On the fishing front we have lost a few fish, we are using a wire trace but the other day one of the links holding the hook trace to nylon line broke! The other day I was rowing at night when this object flew over my shoulder from behind and slammed into the hutch bulkhead. There was then a commotion as the poor flying fish, about a foot long died a slow death in the swimming pool (do you remember, the leg well in front of the hutch entrance that used to fill up with water in the early days). That was tomorrow's bait and the day after for that matter.

Day 56 - Mar 25 2006

Miles/Km rowed to date 1588 miles (2553 km) (1374 n/miles)
Miles/km from La Gomera 1445 miles (2325 km) (1256 n/miles)
Miles/km to Antigua 1570 miles (2526 km) (1364 n/miles)

When we were preparing the boat in La Gomera and talking with Graham Walters who was preparing his boat "Puffin", Graham having already completed 3 crossings, when asked what he got from the experiences, he said that it was the extremes, the highs and lows, that gave him the energy to continue. A couple of days ago we had our best day, not in the best conditions either, posting a high mileage day. That was a high, and felt great, making the sore joints well worth it. It energised us both with optimism, humour, banter creating a high to be remembered. We knew it could be repeated and bettered and we wanted to show that we could achieve with some quality.

The low followed on its coattails - hot sun, no wind, swell diminishing and even in the middle of the night a southerly current pushing us and stoping us. We just had to keep rowing (and still am) at little over a knot against this flow to stop us going backwards if we stopped. In the middle of this very difficult and slightly tetchy time Mike caught our first fish providing a chance to boost morale. It was enough for a meal (being marinated for consumption tomorrow), bait and returned good banter and a chance for us to be optimistic again.. Rowing is still terrible, the boats top speed, the same as our slowest 2 days ago.

Both of us are affected by the highs and lows at different times and in different ways.

We can become tetchy as said above but so far have avoided faaling out in other than in a reasonasle way. Today Mike bit his tongueI went for a sleep, the fish was caught and we look forward together to the next high.

24 March

Well we have had a glorious day in the sunshine, the sky has been a beautiful crystal blue without a cloud in sight. The sea has been flat except for the rollers that are wondering around our landscape, wind has been virtually none existant. The rollers are vast. the distance between crests can be 100s metres but they are having little effect on us and as a result its just another grunt day on the oars in order to make any sensible progress.

The scenery has to be wondered about so blue, so vast, so soft, so red, we certainly have it all.

Mr Fettle himself the chief cook and bottle washer has been busying himself about the boat causing mayhem. Anything not moving for a period of time will get fettled as matter of course by this man. Today floor boards were up, hatches were open, buckets of water here and and scourers there. I think he must be getting butter fingers because in the course of his activities he has managed to loose two scourers overboad. We are now down to one. I'm only glad it wasn't me that lost them. I would never have heard the last of it. As it is he calls me mucktub on a good day, as I normaly eat whilst siting in the rowing position. Sometimes its so windy food is whisked off the spoon between bowl and mouth messing up the boat and depriving me of nourishment! I have now taken to sticking my nose in the bowl so as to minimise scatter.

Hi its Tim. Its all very well complaining but someone has to try and keep things Bristol fashion. Mick has without letting me know, has brought his toy box with him.Full of very useful things like bits of wire to drop here, washers to scatter everywhere, nuts, even self lockers dropped and discarded. When he gets his main toy box out he leaves out saws, G-claamps and pincers ready to grab your bum as yuu sit down, always left and not put away especially at meal times.

Meal times is something else Food goes everywhere.as he described above. One idea Mick had to speed things up with the rowing was for each in turn to eat in the hutch. There are no industrial cleaners available here so no chance. We wouldnt be able to get into the hutch anyway because of all his toys left everywhere, after another bout of trying to catch fish through engineering. Springs, elastic, shock absorbers, sstreteching up and down the boat. No fish though. I'm told bait is also a problem and was not pleased when there were moves to put my lunch sardines on the hook. I suggested fish might like a tea bag soaked in fish juice. Still no fish.

23 March

Hi its Mick
Firstly, I would like to start by thanking all of you that have expressed your condolences for the death of my father, for your kind thoughts and for your unanimous support for my decision to continue rowing until the we reach Antigua. This has been a big support to me. . Tim has also been outstanding in providing his support.

My family have made arrangements for my father's funeral which will take place on Thursday 30 March at 3 30pm. At this time we will stow oars and hold a small ceremony on board Fraser's Boat to contincide with the funeral itself. In this way we will hope to connect with and share in the grief of my family and friends.

On the rowing front we are making steady progress the rollers have arived marching relentlessly across the seas and giving us a lift. The accompanying wind seems to be almost absence, it can only be a matter of time before we expeience the experience of roller surfing, hope, hope.

In the next few days we will reach the half distance stage. Halfway in distance but in terms of difficulty we feel that we are over the worst. Always dangerous to admit to this, but our talk is most definitely of when and not if we get to Antigua. We are all also talking of dates but we will keep you guessing on that one.

Food is an issue for us and no crub is wasted. Some of the packets of crisps which survived the inundation are a bit on the soft side are eaten with out bother.Some porridge packs has been recovered but started to go moulody, its just a matter of sorrting out the good from the bad. The stove no longer works so everything is eaten cold. Breakfast today was asmall bowl of porridge raisins, honey and lots of sugar, Lunch , one chappati and cheese slices, our evening meal was aready meal and a tin of apricot. Stuffed with milk powder to make cream! Hardly the sort of stuff to row an ocean, anyway we have to make it last. Little treats are there like bits of chocolate,
raisins, cold tea and coffee, (yummy), etc, The porridge will last for a couple of weeks then we will make alternative arrangements for breakfast. We, I mean I, need to catch this fish. Don't worry, we have enough to last it out.

We saw a cargo shipon the horizon today, first for 1000 miles , we are not exalty crowded out over here.

Wed 22 Mar

Thanks for everyone who has been thinking of Mick. I know that your support is really important to him. Its strange being out in the middle of the ocean and have such good contact with so many people who genuinely are concerned about us and what happens to us.
We are doing fine despite the harsh routine we have imposed on ourselves. Last night I fell asleep rowing and woke up falling off my perch. I tried sleeping half my body with only one eye shut ( I did accidenly put in the adjacent vowel which is more approprite) but that didnt work as the open eye got jealous.I tried music, singing, racing. When Mick came on to change at 6.00am I was asleep is seconds.I ahve tried to catch up with my sleep today and have slept evry possible moment in prep for tonight. Well ony 50 more nights to go !!!!!
Things are ok withrowing but we still have littl or no good winds but we are pushing hard every shift to keep the pace going.As you can see from the web page we are keeping up a more consistent mileage but its not enough for us and hope the conditions will continue to improve. We dont want to be the first team ever to cross the trade winds and not get any trade winds. However the weather is beautiful and we are trying to appreciate the sunshine, sunsets and calm seas. Tans are starting but only on front and back but our backs of legs get no sun. I wear rowing gloves and I am beginning to look like one of the black and white minstrels. (older readers only will understand). More dolphins arrived to play today but my efforts to video them were rubbish I kept mising them. The best bit was when they exhailed under the boat and air just gushed up all around. They are quite big and very gassy. Good fun but they leave too ealy as they go on the search for other games.

Thats it for Mick sends his regards and thanks.

21 March

Life goes on aboard Fraser' Boat.

The rollers have arrived, quiet unassuming lumps of water that roam the oceans. Get amongst them and you can be carried off and away. Not spectacular at the moment but full of promise for the future.

Another food drama was revealed when we realised that water had again entered one of our buoyancy tanks and damaged more food, so we have taken all the perishable food out of the deck hatchs now and are living along with it in the hutch. Now that we are truly 24 hour rowing we should never need to be in the hutch together! Thank goodness. . This also gave us the opportunity to see all our food again since leaving La Gomera. We are short of food particularly snacks and of course porridge which has taken the bulk of the damage. As both Tim and I are porridge fiends this is particularly
upsetting. Anyway the food search through up the cheese given to me by Fluor where I am working part time in Haarlem (nr Amsterdam) it was merrily maturing in the heat and made a superb dinner with oatmeal biscuits and fruit cake. Thanks every one in Haarlem.

The onus is on me to catch the fish that will save us, What a responsibility or we will emerge as stick men, some of us might anyway.. Some could can cope with this possiblity more than others, no names mentioned of course. Anyway statistic are two bites and two lost hooks. I have rigged up my hand line with stretchies to absorb the impact of the strike.as I only hjave a hand line I am now using a wire trace to the hook. Bait is the problem now, we have to await the little flying fish that land on our boat overnight. One real fish would solve tha bait problem for good. Their grown up friend seem to have better antenna and manage to avoid the boat. Tim is sceptical but I'll show him.

Apart from this little food related interlude we are pressing on as before.

20/19 March

Hi this is Mick, this is the most difficult blog for me to write and by far the most upsetting. I learnt late yesterday afternoon that my father had died following a period of hospitalisation. He had been becoming increasingly frail over the last year and was showing the early stages of dementia. He finally succumbed to what I understand was a secondary infection. I am of course devastated by the news. Both because of the loss
of my father and because of the feeling of helplessness and inadequacy in not being asble to be with my family at this time. Modern communications means that I can talk to all my family from the boat but that is hardly a substitute. The burden therefore for sorting out arrangements will fall to my sister and mother, my wife Pat and close relatives.

Tim is being incredibly supportive and someone I can turn to to talk things through.

I have discussed what I should do ansd decided that the only thing to do is to press on and get then job done with all speed and then get back home to see my mom. I feel my dad would have wanted that and I will think of him as we enter English Harbour, Antigua.

Yesterday evening as the sun went down the sea took on a blood red hue, something I had not experienced before, it was a fitting end to the day.

We are a little limited in what we can put on as a 'do'.on Fraser's Boat However Tim and I broke open a packet of our prized digestives and cheese for a midnight feast along with whiskey chaser. We toasted my dad's life and those our respective families.

Hi Tim here,
Complex times, helpless feelings, a boat to row and an adventure to safely finish as quickly as possible. About an hour before Mick heard his terrible news we had a "boat meeting" and discussed issues relating to boat speed, rowing practices, sleeping patterns and us to each other, a sort of mid atlantic summit (crest). The following was agreed. To row 24 hours a day. We have had a 2 hour break when we could both
sleep enabling a 4 hour kip. Not anymore, as I was out voted by the cook and caretaker
To sharpen up changeovers and not lose boat speed To help each other at changeovers to make it a swift process To try and be positive despite poor rowing conditions. A few home truths were discussed in a positive way and we are set for the second half.

Still waiting for a sea change - ever hopeful and working hard not to maximise our progress towards Antigua.

Our boat is too small for privacy of any kind and so Mick has to cope with this as well as personal isolation from family and friends.. At some time things will return to
routine but for now I have to focus on the boat and Mick. Mick's father Frank has a son to be proud of and I'm sure Mick has your hearts. Please support Mick by
looking forwards and not backwards and help us both complete this journey safely and surely, focusing on our progress enabling Mick to find his own peace.

18 March

Today we have started to make some progress with winds from the NE holding a course for Antigua has been possible without too much trouble. Funny weather with cold rainy times, blustery winds with steep seas and calm sunny bits too, all in a days rowing. Yesterday though our milage wasnt great we were pleased with the mileage with the conditions. We can only row with what we have.

Rowing our boat is a balancing act. The wind blows the hardest on the stern cabin part and to keep the boat going where you want you have to balance this with a rudder turning the other way. If nothing was done the boat would turn across the swell. Those who have windsurfed will understand as the sail is raked backwards to initiate a turn. With the wind directly behind it is hard to stay on the wind on the stern as the swell pushes the boat one way and then another so a lot of steering is then needed to keep going downwind. The easist is to find a balance with the wind on one side or the other and then balance it. You can go for ages like this until the wind strength changes and therefore the effect on the boat changes and it turns unwantedly.

17 March

Light winds from the NNE are making for slow progress. We are rowing, rowing rowing stoically but not a lot to raise a smile at the moment except for your jokes.

We have been pushed south by the winds overthe last week and do not really want to go any further at this stage. Our course to steer track at this point on our great circle route is 269 true at the moment. If we fall much further south we will have to recover northings in order to stay on our track. At the moment we are hold our course even in the conditions but only at speeds that vary from 1 to 1.2 Kt.

Practically it means rowing across the wave pattern which becomes very hard. Thought I'd have a moan. We really hoped that we would find trade winds down here but last night were even held up by a north western for a while.

At least the weather is sunny but it makes our little hutch very hot and sweaty. Enough.

Tonight and tomorrow the same but ever hopful for something to help push us along to the finish.

16 March

Day 46 - 19:35:31N 33:28:37W
Miles/Km rowed to date 1287 miles (2067 km) (1111 n/miles)
Miles/km from La Gomera 1188 miles (1912 km) (1032 n/miles)
Miles/km to Antigua 1862 miles (2996 km) (1618 n/miles)

A pudding sea today, going nowhere fast, we are being forced south more than we would like by n and nne winds however we should be able to recover the situation later. In the meantime we are concentarting on holding our northerly position as much as possible. Tim complaining bitterly about cross seas.
We are both spending time getting used to using our digital cameras, doing videos, continuous shooting, etc, should have got it sorted by the time we get back!
Erden, single handed rower about 150 mile s of us and heading for St Lucia is having the same problems with making to much south.

15th march

Sorry but we are still moaning. The wind and the wave pattern is about at right angles to what we would like and that makes progress really slow, pushing against the elements. We hope that soon things will change cos with our food losses we dont want to be out of food if we continue to make slow progress. Stopping a ship to ask for food would also be difficult as we havent seen one for hundreds of miles.
Thinking about half way is both fun and depressing. We really`want a quicker second half so we dont run out of food.

Mick here, on rthe subject of catching fish we had this verycomprehensive description of how to catch and prepare dorado from a fellow ocean rower Levein Brown that you might find interesting

Leven Brown.
I found on my voyage that catching Dorado was a joy which not only seemed to pass the time but was a very welcome addition to the diet!! Also apologies if you already know these techniques.
Method 1:- Handline (or rod and reel if you have one):- Suitable lures are ones that look like Squid, Wriggly Eels, and Flying Fish (which you will have noticed them feeding on around your boat - spectacular sight when in full chase!). Troll the line 20-30 meters behind the boat and wait. If you don't have lures you can improvise by waiting until a flying fish lands on your boat and lash that to hook - you will not fail to catch with this
especially if you gently score the fish with a knife to put more scent in the water. You will need sturdy hooks as they hit the lures VERY hard at times (they can swim at up to 50Knots!). With that in mind if you are using a handline or improvised handline you will need at least 10 meters of line that is off the handline but inside the boat as a buffer and you can add a simple 'brake' to the line by wrapping it around an open redundant rowlock two or three times. This should give you enough slack to get to line before the breaks it! (I had 80lb test wire broken twice through lack of a suitable buffer!). Not because the fish was that heavy but because they hit the lures so hard! If you do not have lures they can be improvised out of any wriggly material you will have aboard - cotton, rubber, plastic food packets and the like. If you have a black indelible pen try and mark the lure with a dark top but leave the underbelly light - like that of a flying fish.

Method 2:- This only really works if the Dorado are within about 10 feet of the boat but if splash (not too hard nor too fast) the water right next to the boat with the boat hook or the end of an oar the Dorado for some reason are attracted to the point where you will be splashed. When they come up to inspect this you can grab their tails (use gloves if you have them) and haul them aboard. The secret to being successful in this is not to try and grab them too fast - they will always be quicker! But grab them as if picking a flower but a little firmer with the grip! - You may be braver than I but I would recommend doing this on the larger fish (5ft and above) as they may damage your wrist when they make a run for it.

Other fish and tips:- the other edible fish I came across were squid (which I tended to foul hook at night using trebles with strips of flying fish or Dorado skin on each barb). When you catch you first Fish save the skin as this can be used to create very effective lures - even when the skin is very dry it will soon re-hydrate in the water. The worse it smells the more effective it will be!

Once you have caught your magnificent Dorado you may not be able to eat it all at once. If you cut the meat up into thin strips you can brine it for 15-24hours then hang the strips up on a line to dry out. Two days later you will have fish jerky which will last for a month or two. Very nice with some Soy sauce if you have some aboard.
Leven Brown.
======

Watch this space to see how we get on!

14 March

Another nice day in the tropics. Sunshine light wind from the NE to speed us along. We cannot lay our destination. For the technical we are taking a course on our ships compass of between 300 and 270 deg Mag in the NE wind.which is giving us a track of about 255 deg Mag. the bearing required to the destination (Antigua) is 281 deg Mag.so our velocity made good to our destinaionm is a component of our actual ground speed. Even so the forecast ENE should allow us to lay Antigua. Before anyone points out that 281deg Mag has northings that is not the case as the mag variation in these parts is about 17 deg W.i.e.True west is 287 deg Mag.

Our GPS provides track bearing and VMG therefore we can try and minimise the additional miles that we do when not heading straight for our destination.

Had a good day charging up batteries, water maker still ticking along.

Its surprising how the days just come and go. It is qiuite scary to think hat we have been on Frasers Boat out at sea for nearly 7 weeks. How many ore? We have our ideas but probably not appropriate to spectulate here. All  can say it that we are making our best progress , the boat never stops oving. Our routine is generally one hour on one hour off in turn throughout he day with a number of 2 hour stints thrown in in the early hours or when ircumstances require. We have experimented with continuous rowing but just ound the effort too miserable to endure. We therefore end up with the boat rifting free for two hours per night with us both asleep or at least trying o sleep. This gives us oth at least a four hour sleep per night. After all e are not spring chickens out here! Tim insists on his kip.

13 March

Another good day on the boat, nay wind, pudding surface struggling to make ome miles.

Stove stuffed, watermaker being nursed along but showing signs of making a artial recovery. Every day it works is one less day of potential hand pumping got to be good. Seriously, I have had the ammeter on it today , iven it a new oil chamge! Do electric motors need oil chnages, this one does now! Sorted the photo cell problem finally after finding a broken wire so not a bad day really. With the both solar panels in service this will live us more time on the PC to read all of your lovely emails.

Oh great, today we were surrounded by dolphin, I don't know how many,but ots up to 2.5m length. Leaping around and making sounds like bird song even n they were all submrerged, giving the boat a gentle nudge on its way, superb

When we look back only a few weeks, survival on the boat was much more on an   with waterproofs, fleeces ande the like used all the time. There was always water over the deck and life seemed hard. We worked very hard to push south-west to get to a place where the trade winds could help ease us to Antigua. Now we are here its like being on the starting line and the race has been cancelled. Its calm and directionless and we are impatient to take off. We are waiting for the traditional pattern of ENE with a roller pattern in the same direction. Every day they are not there we push a little closer
to the end but not at the speed we would like.I mentioned the start being tough. I know we have no stove but the days are enjoyable, jobs and rowing in good weather. When we get pushed along a bit it may even get better.

12 March

Another day to forget, however on the rowing front we foiund ourselves this morning in a light NE wind with minmal swell. This eventually veered to an ENE which is our ideal wind direction, with this we can lay our destination with ease and therefore every mile is a mile off our overall total. Wind strengths and swell have been slight therefore its another case of grinding out the miles with no spectacular distances to look forward to at the end of the day.

Well why was it so bad you might ask.

Firstly the watermaker problems have returned to haunt us, this time its the bearings suffering belatedly from the effects of their submergence in salt water the other day. It suddenly stopped and blew a fuse this morning. The motor winding was OK thankfully. How to get the lubricant to the bearings? Through the brushgear holes of course, in the oil went went to find its way to the bearings somehow. Its now running but under close supervision, I reckon that we will have to treat it with tlc from now on if we are to avoid hand pumping.

We noticed that the secondary photo cell panel wasNT presenting any charge to
the battery. The solar panel wa delivering about 5 volts instead about 18 volt, Some fiddling later seem to provide a solution but really I'm still not clear what I did. derrrr.

The stove which had continued to annoy us final exploded into life below the control valve so I guess that is that unless we can beform a miracle. No more hot food! At least the lack of gas is no longer a problem. Might even get some more rowing done too!

Apart from this everything is fine , the sun is shining and we can row at night in light fleeces under a moonlit sky.

On the wild life front we are seeing flying fish now. These are about 300mm long and can travel for 100s of metres just above the wave level. They are clearly flying rather than just gliding as their flight path is totally horizontal. No fish has landed a board but we are waiting with knife and fork at the ready.

Early in the expedition I was complaining that rowing at night was quite an ordeal with complete blackness outside no idea about direction, waves or anything. I have just come in from a row in darkness but this time the experience is completely different. I was steering and rowing down a silver motorway provided by a full moon directly behind and above for the right course. The waves were easy, no waterproofs now and a warm breeze. The feeling of being in such a beautiful place and so far from anywhere is something hard to describe but is a mixture of fear and pleasure, of isolation and control, all tempered by a nagging awareness that things can change so quickly and the ocean has no hiding places. Thats the reason why we are doing what we can to move things along as much as we can and so limit the exposure to ourselves out here.But there is still a good feeling about being in a place where our Seame hasnt picked up a radar bleep for days and we havent yet seen another vessel for over 500 miles. Wonder what tomorrow will bring. T x

11 March

We rowed through until about 2 30pm last night and then bedded down for a longer than normal sleep. The weather was calm and warm! no heavy oilies required of course.

Today was a virtual calm with slower low level rollers creeping first this way and then that. We decided to take a b line for Antiga and ignore wave and wind direction and that is exactly what we have done all day. Nice and sunny, did more jobs around the boat laundry, basically got our selves sorted. The stove works better than it ever has and thank goodness the watermaker is behaving. We have plans to improve our chances of catching fish but more of that another day!

Hi Tim here. Its been the sort of boat day i like with lots of jobs successfully completed. We now there is no water coming in the hull as no extra was in the bilges this am. It would have been interesting to watch 2 blokes calmly discussing whether the boat had a hole in the hull or was the water coming from somewhere else. 1000 miles from any coast focusses then discussion.

The day was hazy sunny but good to wear just shorts. We are still using life js at all times but we may get a striped tan.

We hope that if the water maker holds up we are in good shape, both crew and boat to complete this adventure i hope i dont eat my words as food quantity is a problem as you know but mick has other ideas!!!!
Battery charging a slight prblem cos of very hazy days especially ams when the panels are best placed. The water maker takes priority.
We feel as if we are on the verge of another push to get the job done. As we get more into then trade wind belt pick up the North Equitorial current, the trades progress will corresponding increase, that'sthe theory. Lots of work still to be done and we have to be aware of getting complacent. Hopefully not after our scares of the last few days.

1000 mile service. - Sat 11 Mar 06 00:01

What a cpuple of days as they have swung from one end of things to the
other. !000 miles completed - we have felt every inch. But for a moment we took a
photo pf the mileage and we were doing 2 knots - a good speed so far.

We decided to give the boat a full 1000 mile service and from then on everything went down hill. Firstly we found that a small pipe, the waste pipe of the watermaker, and had flooded the locker conraining the watermaker, invluding the electric motor. Pump pou and all seemed rell as rge motor qorked ok.Crisis over ???
Second on the list of jobs was ro check the water tight hatches containing our last 40 dats of provisions. I couldnt believe it when i opened the hatches there was over 1ft of wate in each locker. I was only checking an inventory as it should have been completely dry there. We know thae food will be tight later as we dont have enough snacky type foods. So i was to find out the exact state of our larder. It was in fact a mess. So out it came from the locker, everything kept that was packed on airtight packages but we lost most of the porridge, tea, friut and nut a real downr as we were
already low on that sort of food. We repacked, bagged and stowed awat else where and fed oats and nuts to the fush. Lockers to clwan and anither problem to solve. Better finding out now than later. Mick and i are swopping rowing/writing now.

8 March

More rowing, this time in messy seas which will return modest distances . Do these nice smoooth rollers exist where we will glide effortlessly down the face at never to be imagined speeds.

No fish yet, I tried the plug today, these tasty fish swan up to it any then treated oit withdisdain. What I am waiting for is for the Atlanic wersion of mackerel to come by that virtualy catch themselves. No suggestions yet on how to catch little monkeys yet.

No change on the gas cooker situation. It works just about, but we have suggesion to use fish hooks, raid the first aid. copper or steel wire strands.

We have crossed into what we have termed the great circle part of our route and will follow this to our final destinstion. Infactr we will are using Antigua as our way point on our GPS even though if id dtill 1800 nm away.

Tomorrow we will exceed 1000nm rowed etc on Frasers Boat log since leaving La Gomera.. We may break out the digestive biscuits to celebrate. As an aside I am mad about digestive biscuits, imagine my surprise to find out that they are made in Carlisle near Tim's home, truly amaxing!

7 March

A good day on the oars and the stove jet has decided of its own accord to partially unblock which proves the adage 'if in doubt, do nowt'. Anyway Tim managed to cook dinner without covering us all with soot.

We have decided to try our hand at fishing. We have some plugs and a patternoster trace with hooks with feathers. We obviously don't want to catch anything to big as our pot is quite small. We thought it would be good to do boiled fish and possibly dried raw fish we don't have any cooking oil etc.. Anyway I reckoned they would jump onto the hook as we normally have an ontourage of fishy friends following the boat and I am not talking about Tim's sharks. Infact has this thing that something is going to grsb him when he is hanging over the side doing the washing up.

I dropped the paternoster in and within seconds this big thing grabbed hold of it and was off. It was on for a millisec before it bit through the nylon line.   It has been said that we are eating too much and want a bit extra. For sure there are no picky appetites on this boat and if we had twice the amount of food it would be eaten.

Following some good news with the stove we nearly had disaster with the watermaker. We had always said that the watermaker cupboard had special status. Anyway we did and this knocked the waste pipe off allowing seawater to enter. We found it full of water, the motor underwater!!!!!! I had sealed it as best I could before installation with tape and mastic because this had always concerned me. Anyway after pumping the chamber dry we found the system worked, shoiuld I strip the motor down to check, I'm inclined to leave well alone, fingers crossed..

6 March

Today we had wind and waves aligned from the NE. This produced better seas for us and enabled better speeds to be attained. However, his deteriorated as the day progressed.

The problem with the cooker still persists, the jet is blocked and only by allowing gas to leak past a loosely fitted jet can we get a smokey flame. The hole size for the jet is very small and we have nothing thin enough, not even copper strands of wire. In the meantime we enjoy a reduced service from our cooker and the cook.

We still get blue skies and warm weather, we found our first flying fish on the decks this morning, Tiny Litttle an ocean rower has stated that we should dry them,they taste like anchovies. We certainly will, no gas or cooker needed also!

Forecast for the next few days are good so we go into our night of rowinbg contented !

Sunday 5th march.

Over the last few days we have as you know made some progress but nowhere near as much as we would have liked. The wind has been good, steady and blowing in the right direction. The waves however have been very difficult, going to the north west and all over the place. The wave action just slows the boat right down and this makes it
extremely difficult at times even to stay on the rowing seat. Its also bad for bums as you wear out the bits that grip seats.The lack of progress makes all the aches and pains worse.and the rolling the boat all over the place making everything extremely difficult and exhausting.

Last night we rowed through again. i say rowed cos we found that if we could manoever the boat into a tight 30 degree corridor we got more out of the boat just steering her down wind. So much for our rowing. So I was in my element with search light in hand onto our new tell tales (for wind direction) made from a shower whats it (long strands of material knotted up)and trying to point the boat down some corridor. When out side that zone, a stumbling move across the deck to oars to bring us back in line.
Anything is better than nothing. The seas yesterday were huge about the size of houses rolling and snarling at you and coming from all sorts of angles Today the seas have begun to calm but are still very confused. We hope for a clean sea tomorrow as forcast. They were right about confused today.

By the way we have ONLY 1900 nautical miles to go to Antigua. A snip.

Problems with the gas stove now as the main jet is bunged up and mike is sympathetic to a cooker left out in the elements. I'm not.!!!! We now have a stove with a modified jet ( jet left loose so gas comes out round it rather than through it)
The caretakeers had a look and unsurprisingly I didnt have a jet cleaner needle on me whilst rowing .Its now designed to burn the hairs off our legs but was not ready until after cold coffee and porridge for breakfast today. I also spilt some porridge in the boat motion which did not help.All our rowing stuff was soaked from last night, all our sore bits unpowdered and no tea. What is this trip coming to.

I hope i can make something hot tonight or we will be getting down in the dumps. With very little sun we are not charging the batteries fully but we are in the tropics as we remind ourselveves So things can only gt better.

Mike says I make it sound grim so I'll leave it up to him to add some progress cheer.

He asked me to mention the wild life. We see quite a number of fish some quite large by Cumbrian standards and soon scare the rowing shorts off me.

3 March

Steady progress in ENE and NE but with crosswaves which are limiting our max speed to less that 1.9kn. This looks to be the pattern or the next 5 days or so.

Over the next 5/6 days we will be moving down into the region of the north equatorial current. It is hoped that that should start to delivery more steady sea states which along with ENE trade winds will move us along at a good rate towards Antigua.

Erden Eruc is also rowing the Atlantic, solo, at the moment and is about about 100nm S of our position. We have tried to contact him using our sat phone as his email is out of action. He is making good progress.

2 March

The night was quieter rowing wise than expected the ENE wind came, changing from a NE at about midnight abruply but had little force in it allowing us to make only 0.5kn. In the end we decided to call it a day at about 3 am and bedded down starting again at 6am. The wind was being held off by a local bank of cloud. We had a liesurely breakfast and rowed on slowly expecting things to improve which they did. Nice ENE wind materialed, lively but not excessive producing a good speed up to 1.8 knots on broken rollers. It looks as if the wind will cary us through the night.

Also we will see a moon again for a while, this should enable us to see the water surface. For days we have be rowing in inky blackness being hit from time by rogue waves that wrench your bottom around on the seats Mine is sore again after feeling that I had got over the worst. Tim did some extra rowing today so that I could give it some tlc..Hopefully with the moon we will get some stars again, Tim has difficultly seeing the graduations on the compass from the rowing position and stars have been obscured so making it difficult to get reference points for now when to adjust the rudder or gybe. Yes gybe just like a sailing boat but with no sails of course these aren't allowed.

As you go down the face of a wave it is necessary to balance the forces of wind and wave with the rudder and the oars. Therefore it is necessary continually to adjust the position of the rudder to maintain alignment and even gybe through the wind if necessary to get the wind on to the other flank of the boat. Certainly a knowledge of sailing and general seamanship is a prerequisite of any ocean rower more so that any rowing experience. As you know both Tim and I are sailors, no jokes please!

1 March

First day of March and we have been on the road now for 31 days. Seems only yesterday that we set off bright eyed and bushy tailed from La Gomera.

A lot has happened in that time. It was said that we would know all we needed to know about ocean rowing in 10 days by Kenneth of the Ocean Rowing Society. Well we are still learning as you might expect but it wasn't far from the truth. We have now experienced prolonged storms, gale force swells, massives benign seas, rollers flat calms, pudding seas, etc, etc. We have had days of pleasure, pain, misery, elation, disappointment, self doubt, what on eartrh am I doing here, cold, fear, every possible human emotion, well almost, I haven't fallen for Tim yet!!

Yesterday, I said that there wouuld be some news. No its not as was suggetsed that we have an outboard motor stashed away. Ha ha. Seems a bit of an anti-climax now but we are now officially in the tropics, though Tim refuses to believe it someone had previously filled his head with impressions that the tropics were hot. We crossed the tropic of Cancer Lat 23 N last night and today our GPS tells us that it is less than 2000nm to Antigua!

Today we rowed and rowed and plan to row throughout the night. The forecast for the next 5 days is ENE winds so this will be good for us. Last night the wind was from the north and we made quite a lot of southing. These ENE winds are what we want and it looks as if we are in for a stable period that will allow us to consolidate our position in the trade wind belt.

Mike makes it sound easy. I think the hardest for me is making some sense of the physical and the emotional. It may sound a bit silly but the rowing is often he easiest part - continually getting up to row is harder, trying to face 2 months more is harder, putting things in perspective is harder, worrying about endless difficult situations is harder. This is a masive challenge and despite all written we are finding ways of doing it --small targets, chatting when we can, looking after each other, doing our best.
There have been no tears yet - those that know me well know i have my moments but each day is a day towards something achieved which is almost unachievable and that motivates.

About motivation. Some attempt at psychology at the start led us to putting some slogans on the boat. Pain is temporary, now has petit in front. Pride is for life now has mothers in front and soon (when we find the pen) Memories not dreams will change a vowel.. Makes me laugh whi`ch is motivating.

28 February

After superb rowing yesterday afternoon we went into the evening with sea becoming more disturbed our speed slowed from a respectable 2.6kn to 1kn in the confused sea. Despite the worsening conditions we rowed throught out the night and all of today. Wind from the nw then ne and now nw again, the sea is a mess going this way and that. We can make about 1 kn and will continue to row throughout the night.

We have have some significant events coming up very soon which we will tell you about tomorrow.

A bit of a down day following the good seas we experienced yesterday daytime. S'est la vie.

27 February

We woke from our slumbers early, no attempt to row last night. I set off in a flat calm with a wisp of a wind from the NNW. As the sun got higher in thesky Tim cooked breakfast of porridge and builders tea. Highlight of our day, really, no joke. Throughout the dayn the wind has slowly swung around to the north still no more force 1 to 2
but helping us along in a generally southertly direction which we are happy with for now. Its now 2 30hrs we have filled up our water bottles from the desalinator and can put that issue out of our mind for the rest of the day. The battery is always struggling to keep up with the demands on it primarily from desalinator and from the laptop. It may surprise you to know that the power consumed by the laptop is equal to that from for the water maker at 5 amp 12V. Each night I lie below the solar power charge regulators that scream out at me with flashing lights no more we have given all. Any way the sunshine or even light cloud covered skies allow the batteries to recover for another day. We have solar panels on the top and port side of the hutch. These we more effective as more west comes into our route.

Clouds are coming over and it starting to split with the wind flicking back again to the nw.

We feel we are now getting into the tropics, the daytime temperature has climbed to25.5 C today. There is a different feel to the weather and the skies, different from the decidely cold and miserable weather we have left behind. We are even considering where to store our heavy weight oilies which we have been really thankful for over the last weeks.

So tropics equal lolling around in the sunshine. Yes, Les, I will have ton work on my tan. Get this ladies we have had sight of the first naked rower today. I think it was Tim. Not a pretty sight. I'll put suntan on his back but draw the line for anywhere else. We now seeing small floating sea anenomies (spelling). They are about 150cm long and dangle short tenticles into the sea. They move around at the mercy of the wind and waves, bit like us really, using a small windsurfer sail. The bird we see with the swallow like tail has been identified as the band rumped storm petrel, thanks Zsuzsa of Cambridge a free Fraser's Boat tee shirt is on its way to you!

Thanks to Anna for the jokes which we have produced below. Hope no one out there is too pc for the plane crash one. Its a gem.

The weather as mick says has begun to change and we hope for the better. Mick mentions storage. Its a problem as we need to know where everything is and yet it needs to be put away so the boat stays shipshape.Storage is also so limited. Yesterday I spent time fixing up netting from the roof of the hutch to put things that are light away but maybe needed occationally - waterproofs, warm sleeping bag (I say one as mike chose not to bring his and so we have been sharing but now are glad we dont have 2 to
store).Waterproofs maybe needed at night and also if the waves begin to pick up if we ever get the trade winds back. Anyone know whos pinched them? When I can find a way of showing the storage I will send a photo.

Mike told you about the little windsurfer thing. It was great just bobbing and changing its direction depending on the wind - I guess thats what we are doing. A boat man (who could speak English) in La Restinga (Broken watermaker) told me a bubble that begins in La Restinga will eventually burst in the Carribean. Maybe our paths will cross again. It was being followed by blue and white tiny fish too.

By the way 2 more characters have appeared in our little drama - our postman and Tommy. Tommy is the little bird identified above who it seems followed us for 600 miles from the Canaries. There may be loads of the them but it looked the same to me, therefore Tommy. He was too shy to sit on the boat. I wonder if he will follow us further as I've not seen him today? The postman is the bloke who delivers all our emails which drop onto our virtual doormat at least once a day. Everyday they bring us fun, encouragement, purpose and contact. and from all sorts of forgotten corners. Maybe thats telling me something!!
Anyway as life is directed by batteries, shiftwork, food, sleep, day, night,
I must sign off. T x

26 February

It been a funny old day. We awoke to a virtual calm, the wind blew one way the b blew the other, wave action was minimal. We slogged on at a pathetically slow pace. On calm water with an unloaded boat we were achieving between 1 & 2 knots during training on the river in UK. With a loaded boat weighting upwards of a tonne in a wallowing sea we struggled to maintain 0.3 knot. We have rowed all day for a pathetic return again. We need a break at the moment.

Tim and I are both physically in good shape, mentally, well, that may have been put into question. No but seriously we are raring to get going

I am sitting here in the hutch typing thi blog, Tim is cooking dinner outside, the sea is glass calm, really beatuiful. For the first time I feel I am typing this on a table top, its so still. I have been over the side again to clean off a few growths on the rudder, hull and desalinator intake pipe. We are washed and scrubbed for dinner, no more rowing this evening . We have decided to take an early night and be ready for the off at what ever time it happens. The forecsast for the tomorrow is NE wind and waves from
the NW. Should be anmother confusing mess but it will permit progress.

Saturday 25 February

Miles/Km rowed to date 691 miles (1110 km) (596 n/miles)
Miles/km from La Gomera 623 miles (1003 km) (542 n/miles)
Miles/km to Antigua 2361 miles (3800 km) (2052 n/miles).

Still pressing on in nice weather could have reached the tropics.

We paddled for 18 hours to make 9nm. Better today may approach 20ish, come on weather sort yourself out.

Tim here. As you gather food is one of my responsibilities and today is another gas free day. This is a bit of a problem for the menu as most of the things left in this 5 day pack are the bits and pieces that are either not liked or need a bit of cooking.The pre packed food is either boil in a bag or freeze dried and needs to add water. The boil in a bag is so much tastier with even a piece of chicken identified the other day. The meals do not encourage eating. Despite all that niether of us seem to be losing vast amounts of weight so at least the catering seems to be doing its job.

Priorities for us out here have changed quite a lot since we started and become much more uncomplicated. Making sure we sleep and eat enough, drink the rehydration juice, arrive to row on time, stay safe on the boat (Life jackets and life lines are worn when ever out of the hutch or cockpit).Wind and wave direction (and height), course, milage , targets, row as hard as can to maintain course but stay fit (strains and bum). We also love it when the post bag arrives and we can go through the emails and messages. Its a real high part of the day.

At the beginning we were both worried about how we could fit around the demanding routines and i'm sure our blogs reflected our concerns. I know the weather is calm at the moment but an 18 hour rowing day is now OK. I need more of my sleep in a small block and we try and fit that into the night time schedule especially as my night vision is poor and seeing the weakly lit nav aids becomes a problem and i could easily end up undoing good work already done.We are not now constantly wondering how on earth we are going to do this but know that unless something extreme happens we are capable of doing this thing. I dont look on another 60 days with anything else other
than an OH. It will be done if we caqn keep the basics right - all the stuff above (priorities) and keep ourselves ready for the unexpected and that is done through "What if?" conversations between the bothof us.These usually reflect a slight change of practice. At the moment our discussions are about a trailing rope for night time sailing. Thid coupled with a rigid LJ and lifeline policy should go along way to avoiding the unimaginable and a MOB. Anyway progress is better today as we felt trapped yetserday. Anywqy better to be trapped in hot sun than that horrible storm we had previosly. Speak soon.T.x

Making the most of a terrible rowing day.Friday 24 Feruary

The Coastguard cap, see the gallery to the top right of this page,  belonging to Tim is used for many things including a tea cosy, pillow, night time rowing hat and glove storage place.

We both went swimming today as the sea was doing nothing to help the rowing but was good to stretch out in and let the salt water to all the sores.. All in 4000 metres of water and no sharks.

Late night rambles.Friday 24 February

Sitting out in the middle of the ocean on a night full of stars is interesting experience to say the least. Now before i start all who know me will agreee that i tell a tale or two,
based on truth but the tale will evolve until the actual truth is hard to remember.

So the truth is 2 blokes on a boat in the middle oif an ocean, getting on well and pushing hard. Thats the baseline. However there are more than 2 people on this boat and i'd like to introduce them over the next few days.

 We have a caretaker who is on the boat, i visualise him with a brown work coat and a bag of tools. He is vitally important as he goes around
fixing, sawing and bashing. Just like the caretaker at work he comes out with strange answers to normal questions. Like our caretaker who when asked to put on the heat gives us the answer that it is september. Whats that to do with being cold. Our caretaker when asked about why i cant steer a course will tell me about self locking nuts. Well! He also hasnt spoken to Mike about boat rules as he blatently upsets the balance of the boat, leaves spanners and cable ties everywhere and will even dismantle the steering when in use.This bloke rules the roost but only appears when on my own. I need to mention him ti Mick.

Then there are the noises or voices. My doctor tried to have me certified before this trip but now....? T he waves bash the hull all the time and both of us are brought up short as a sound resembles a name or a known voice.Sometimes I know where they are - at the baths, walking down a road - their voices clear but not quite enough to hear what they say.

I tell you this little boat is becoming a very crowded place.

This is the end of the ramble but i'm sure there will be retaliation.

Today the sea is still the same but the sun is shining and it will become wash day. Seas jumbled, no wind so other jobs call.

Reasons and Excuses.Thursday 23 February

Below is the reason for our poor daily progress compared with some recent days. Thanks to Laurie, one of Micks friend who supplied the info.

Here is some sort of weather prediction as gleaned from the net. There is a weather system in north atlantic that is messing the winds and waves. Basically wind is running up the back of a north atlantic system causing it to veer to west and then back and waves are spreading south east meeting the prevailing waves travelling sw. These will give you two wave trains one from the north west the other from the northeast. I guess
that is what you might call confused.

Approx Wind Speed (knots), wind direction, wave height (ft), wave direction
Feb
23 15 wsw 11 se to sw
24 14 w/wsw 6 se
25 14 sw 5 s
26 14 sw 5 se to s
27 14 sw 8 se to sw

According to the satellite pics there is little cloud but you are in rain

What taht lot means to us is that the waves and the wind are not coordinated and at times it is difficult to know which to follow for best. It also looks like we will have the same pattern for the next few days (and nights). We are trying different things. Yesterday as mentioned in the last blog we were trying to steer for the other while he rowed. This enables the rower to keep working without always stopping to adjust the rudder which is between his feet. This sets up its own probs with over stretching too often. We also need to change rudder more often because of the nature of the confused sea, A bit of a negative spiral. With the other steering he can pick the best
line and the boat speed picks up. The problem with it is that noone gets good rest, the crack is good but today we know we cantr keep it up especially as the forcast is for it to continue for a few days. The odd day yes but not for a long period.
Got to close up now as the cloudy conditions make us unable to charge batteries ans as we need water that takes priority until the sun shines. Time to keep grafting and put in some hard yards, Every 30 mile ws now is a day less at the end.

Wednesday 22 February

Hi Readers

Today we rowed and rowed. We are just about to start the night shift which will I hope will be more productive than the day shift which resembled paddling through porridge in a confused sea. I am on sick leave for an houir follow massage from doctor Tim to free up some bunched up muscles in my back. I'II soon be back to the oars.ction now

We are looking for the perfect rolling wave maybe they exist in the trade wind belt (300 miles south of our position and where we are heading) where we will surf effortlessly down wave after wave and do lots of lovely miles, hope hope.

We thought we we were getting near to the tropic but still needed to wrap up, certainly not rowing in buff for us. Full water proofs. Every now and again some one throws a bucket of water of us. Lying in the cabin when Tim is rowing it is difficult to imagine that he hasn't had a blow out and hit the central reservation or some uncharted rock, with the noise some of the waves make as they impacts are so servere.
Anyway we keep telling orselves it will get warmer soon. the early days.

Rob and Szuza from Cambridge ask what wild life we have seen, sorry we don't have tails of dolhins or whales yet. So far we have seen the grand total of one small turtle who paddled past us the first storm when we were at anchor also a swallow like bird, several sightings that swops across the waves black, solid forked tail and a white mark on back V shape, anyone any ideas, obviously hundreds of miles from land and lookikng quite happy. Drinks sea water whilst still in flight.

Tim here. Trying to make the most of a confused\sea. When I finish 1 hour row with Mick resting, he will row for 2 with me steering. We seem to make better progress that way but don't know how long to keep it going cos i like my sleep.

Today we went over 600 nautical miles rowed. That includes poor nav bits too but if we are optimistic its about a quarter. Its also 24 days out which is about a quarter of the time. We have caught up on our lost days from the storm and the watermaker.(7 in all), so there is much to celebrate with a cold coffee (it was another gas free day yesterday.). We don't have much to go to make it over the Tropic of Cancer, leave us less than 2000 NM to go. A few short term targets to meet rather than wondering how on earth are we going to do this!!!!!

I have got to row again now. Elbow still sore but hope infection now gone. My massage skills used last night but i had to go and row instead so i was pleased when it seems to have worked and mick is back in full action.  I am on the ones from the market. Take care everybody, we are doing ok and find our way out of most probs. This part of the trip is about grafting the miles away. No one else can do them for us.

Monday 20 February

Mileages are down, we were making northings the other day with the prevailing conditions, things then changed later on but our overal distance covered was reduced.
Today a confused sea with waves coming at us from all directions has made it equally difficult. We have had difficulties again with the steering so decided to carry out further mods. Handy work drilling, sawing etc on deck is not easy but any way I think we have improved the system even though I can hear Tim quietly ciursing its short coming outside on the oars.

Rowing in the early night hours is in almost total darkness, I can see our instrument GPS , compass etc but poor old Tim is flying blind until the moons comes up in the early morning..

Hi Ive just come in, The only useful external help i get is the wind blowing onto my face. We cannot even see the ends of the paddle blades and need white tape on the handles to fix them.in the right place to row. Hard work today. I was getting very frustrated with the lack of progress and the rudder.
10 mins and I'm back out into the deep black night. Anyone know why the moon rises so late

ps its still cold and cloudy and rains every day No suncream used in earnest yet.

Saturday 18 February

We have survived our no gas day and made amends for it today, not sure if it is supposed to work like that. Anyway we have eaten well. The food isn't at all bad and I can recomend our local chef ( monsieur Tim). The eat out of the bag ham and mash was beautuifully presented and his builder strength tea is something to savour.

We have followed on with a no stop rowing policy. As stated early we were spending too much time prattling and not getting on with job. We still prattle on but only on condition that someone is rowing efficiently.Our mantra is 'keep the boat moving'. Hopefully this will return increased mileage.

Both Tim and I have good and bad days, a reccurence of sore areas yesterday resulted in me having a bad night but I have worked at and today and have been a lot better. Just at the moment we commented that we were both felling quite upbeat. Tim and I are good for esch other he supports me and I hope I do a good job for Tim.

We have been able to salvage one good sliding seat out of the wreckage of the others and so the life raft has been demoted to just being a life raft. In truth we are not really sliding on the thing to anything its full extent. I'll put in a piece on rowing technique a la Frasers Boat at some time which will explain the technique or lack of such required.

Hi its Tim.
Perhaps we are always complaining. today I've had a really good day. Prattle indead!!!!!! The reason why we are down is because of the enormity of the task. That always seems to temper a good day so today has been good. I dont think a record day as the seas and wind have been on and off and the wind gusting then quiet. Not complaining though. Our rowing is so much smarter than at first and sailing skills about wind directioi, leeway etc help. Leeway is the effect of wind and waves on the direction of the craft. Most of the time we are at the mercy of the wave direction as they take the boat where they are going anyway. Going across big waves can be a capsize risk
too. Lets hope in a week we can be counting donm the miles to Antigua but to do this and smile we have to remember that today has been a good day.

Thursday 16 February

We are continuing to acquire skills in coping with wind and wave relationships. The evening before last just after us saying in our last blog that we both hated the nights. One of the reasons was all too obvious. That night the wind picked up as had been usual, I called to Tim that I need help with the steering to cope with the conditions. It soon turned into survival rowing us hanging on until it blew itself out. I was getting more tired and the weather not improving. In the end we took the decision to put out the anchor and get below.That went really well, we have had lots of practice and
the weather which turned out to be a good gale was definitely not for rowing. We awoke the next morning and attempted to continue only to find ouit in the night that we had lost the shackle off the steering mechanism whilst at anchor. Some repairs were carried out followed by on the move improvements to the rudder mechanism to improve port and starboard travel.

The seats have continued to give problems and in a fit of desparation they have all been confined to the forecabin and we are sitting comfortably on the life raft. If it should inflate accidentally one of us will be launched into orbit. Only danger is that we will end up as men with stick legs in Antigua as we obviously have no sliding seat action.We will therefore have to construct a gym in the vacant seat plot at the front of the boat to go with our swimming pool.

Last days has been spent in effectively trying to get the best out a 'small' confused sea.

Bad news we are using cooking gas much faster than expected therefore tomorrow has been declared a no hot food day. you wouild think we would be trying to make things better for ourselves.

Hi, Tim here. Sounds a bit hairy but our experience in the gale before helped. Just a note about the lasst gale. We were rightly told the winds would change in our favour on the Sunday. Mick and I were talking in "the hutch" about Sunday being only a weekend away when we found out it was Thursday not Friday. A definite low point.!!!!! If we have told you this before sorry

Gas. Too little on board for the luxury cooking. If we run out I cant imagine a whole week or more without a cooked meal so we have decided to share the pain out a bit. Trouble is i am now a cup of tea fantasist, and double d cup at that. I have an idea though. a black bag left out in the hot sun (hoping) containing fresh water will produce a nice cup of luke warm tea/coffee i'm sure. Something to help you on to your rowing shift. "If you row continuously for 2 hours you can have a cup of off cold coffee at the
end. Nothing if its cloudy.

We have also given ourselves a talking toabout time wasting off rowing. 1 mile lost a day =100 miles = 3 days rowing. it could be lost through poor change overs or too much chatting (me) or slow dressing for rowing. 2 miles a day doesnt bear thinking about. So cleaner sharper change overs called by the rower !! and not waiting for the one to come in.

The start of the night is rowing in the complete black as the moon hasnt yet risen and the sea is impossiible to see, the waves just a black void punctured by breaking waves and flashes of rogue waves at angles to the others, their aim in life is to find a rower in a small boat and soak him.The shadowb also make you "see" things that arent there. Yesterday I was rowing on the edge of a wood with a aminroad clse by. These thoughts and the fact we have 2 others on board who mess things around for us but never offer
to row (another story for another time)..

Tuesday 14 February

The wind is in the right direction; the boat is better balanced with all the next 15 days food with us in the rear cabin.;M.ick is doing extra rowing and I'm dping food storage and balance; the sun is trying to shine; my elbow is no worse; we did 36 yesyerday in a very confused sea; ---- so its not all negatives.

The night time rowing is the worst, i have only fleeting moments when i dont hate it as the seas are so confused with all the past weather that its hard to pick the right couse. Get it wrong and we all get soaked and a job to get back going right again.

Yes , i agree with Tim regarding night time rowing it mind wrenching its all that thrashing, loomimg shapes and flashes of foam coupled with cold, well at least at the moment.

We are getting the hang of this rowing business so maybe thinks will get better.

Monday 13 February

Well at last the good weather has arrived, northeasterly wind, blue skys and rolling waves albeit a bit confused at times. Then the frustration set in of not being able to make the best of the conditions, we went this way, then that way, cross the waves, down the waves, every way. If we were not to row the atlantic distance twice we had to learn and learn how to cope with the conditions quckly. This also came at a time that Tim found out that he had an infected left elbow. We think it is one of the many knocks taken in the storm. Its pretty red and swollen We were a bit down, we drifted for a
while sorting out options Tim is now on antibiotics and rowing.

Regarding the boat control, it all comes down to trim. I alluded to the problem in a
earlier blog, the cabin has a lot of windage due to its shape whilst the forecabin has little. Therefore the boat tends to weather cock with the nose coming up to wind.We completely cleared the forecabin except for very light items and reloaded the most of it into our cabin at the rear of the boat, even more cosy now!. All warps have been stored in rear locker. The life raft has been moved into the 'swimming pool area', the well in front of the rear cabin door which usually gets filled with water everytime we get with a big one over the bow.

We set off again hoping that we had scored on two fronts. We hope now that Tim's elbow is on the mend and guess what the boat performs a dream . We can now surf the big waves and hold a course. We have to make adjustments periodically to the rudder position but this isn't a problem from the rowing position. Hopefully our daily mileages will reflect the change.

Our first 15 days on the water have exposed us to many aspects of ocen rowing.What did Kenneth Crutchlow (of ORS) say to us in one coversation? You will know all there is to know about ocean rowing in 10 days, well in our case it took a little longer and we are still learning.

We had our first contact with shipping last night a tug boat towing a ship on an 800m line came fairly close, we able to communicate with the bridge using our VHF radio. After a bit of correspondence and mutual identification the tug and tow veered to starboard to give us more sea room.

Being back on the oars is hard work but every day gets us neared to Antigua. It probably too much to have that as our near objective, so what we call our Great Circle Way point is our objective, approx 560 Nm away on a track of 255 deg mag from our present position I won't hazard a guess when we will be there in case that disturbs the weather demons. Near this way point we will swing onto to our final way point, Antigua.

Tim here.Well cheesed off with the elbow but hope to have caught it early. The pills might cure my feet, hands, leg,bum as well as my elbow. I just keep snagging myself on sharp bits that keep taking out chunks.

Life on the Ocean Waves.
Sea.me Radar Refloector -. It is an electronically enhanced radar reflector which sends out an enhanced image to the radar screen of nearby shipping.. It bleeps everytime a radar sweep hits it. Last night as Mick said a confrotation with a tugl was very soon recognised and action taken. It has just bleeped now which means there is a boat with a radar somewhere between the horizon and us. it goes a bit manic if the vessel gets closer. Mick fitted an buzer overided switch to it the other day to stop driving us mad.

Saturday 11 February

After a stormy night the morning was calmer with the wind from the NNW. We decided to give it a go so after breakfast we retrieved the anchor and off we went. Reasonable progress has been made across the wind and waves at about 1 kn for the last 6 hours intially we were holding a track or cours emade good of 220ish however the wind has backed to NW and we aree just about holding 190 track . Anyway this is giving us good southerly and a little westerly progress. We are now in roller country and seeing these
towering monsters coming up at you side on can be a little disconcerted. But she floats like a cork over of them, only occassionally do we get a slapping as the peak of the wave as it hits the side of the boat. Tomorrow if the weather forecast is correct we can look forward to surfing down the faces of these so and sos. The sun is shining now Tim and I are in a one hour on one one off routine for the time being.

Tim here just in. Good to be away but really hard work accross the waves. We are losing 40 degrees of leeway. Must have a rest as back on in 45 mins. hope everyone at home is ok. We are doing our best out here and need some help from the elements.

Friday 10 February

When as a little boy going on holiday with the family, the weather typical for an English summer, wet and cloudy, mum would always try and cheer us up by spotting "bits of blue (sky)that were big enough to make a sailor a pair of trousers. Her powers of observation and cheerfulness would be tested to the maximum as again we are held up by the wind direction and in some ways too the wave height.

Desperate to move things along at 3.30 am we had a calming sea and tried for 4 hours to row closer to our waypoint than at present. The wind was about f3 but the waves were coming from the west so we were trying to cut across the wave pattern and wind direction to make some headway to the sw. At the end of the 4 hours the weather deteriorating, we had covered a max of only 2 miles and we were both exhausted.
It want just rowing but working to stay on a course that the elements didnt like. We want to make the move but felt quite down when despite the effort both the wind and waves increased, sending us on the long journey to Morroco We had to deploy the sea para anchor again to avoid losing the little ground made.The elements too strong for our efforts to stay on course.Wind direction this morning is still blowing wnw and we are again going nowhere.

The morning is like the olden day summers looking for blue to make a sailor a pair of trousers. Mick points out that there is some blue sky about but he is sitting tring to
fix the navigation light in a rain storm lyin flat on his back with his head in the fore cabin.

However baromic pressure is rising, there is some blue sky but we need to row as nothing as yet has been achieved despite the physical exertions. We are forcast favourable winds for Sunday and would love them to last long enough to make some inroads into the total distance needed..

The time factor came home to me today when i opened a new 10 day pack of food. !0 days out and only 200 and a bit gone. Times must change!!!!

In the 10 day pack ( For those who helped to put it together yes we have combined 2 x5 day packs) we have a cerial/porridge breakfast, chocolate, cakes, crisps, biscuits, cheese for during the day and night and an expeddition freeze dried evening meal of chilli, or stew, or savoury chicken and a choice of pud - choc pud . apples and custard. The treat for these 10 days are 2 christmas puds supplied like so much of our food from Asda (Organised by Anna my daughter - thanks ) They would had ssome interesting questions at customs with someone carrying out to the Canaries a suitcase
full of cake and puds.

Mick is still working away on the electrics lying on his back in the rain. What more can I say.!!!

Mick - one positive to come out this enforced rest is that when we do start off with quite a lot of work and improvements carried out on the boat and hopefully with our rudder, power anchor and electric in good order.

Life on the Ocean Waves - Navigation, our main source of navigation is GPS. We have one fixed system that we can see from the rowing position and two hand held units as backup. We have keyed in a number of way points to assist our passage.The normal route for cruising and rowing boats is to head off from the Canaries in sw direction to a point about 150 miles off Cape Verde before shaping a course to Antiga. This takes advantage of the prevailing wind the (the trade winds) and the equatorial current. Our first waypoint was therefore a point south east of the island of El Hierro to ensure we
give it a wide berth and from there head off down to further waypoint where we swing west for the Caribean. We have called this way point our Great Circle point. This point is an ideal and it is unlikely that we will actual arrive at the point but it gives us an intrim position to aim for. When we are sufficently near to the Great Circle point, and able to do so we will swing on to the the Antigua way point. Should be easy, wind and weather permitting.

If all GPSs fail then we have to fall back onmy celestial nav skills, god help us.

Thursday 9 February

We are still stuck on our parachute anchor waiting for even stronger winds to come today and then to ease and change in our favour by Sunday. It may seem odd that we are so much dominated by the weather and especially wind direction, but it is impossible to row against the the wind strengths that we experiencing which cause the waves soon to build up into real gooduns. Some of the waves we saw before lights out made us a bit humbled, towering great things. Interesting, yesterday whilst Mick was observing our lack of progress on the GPS we noted with the sw wind our track at about 0.2 kn was directly into the wind. We could only deduce that this was the effect of the Canaries current which flows sw at about 0.5kn.

The para anchor which we deploy floats just under the water, held in place by buoys and at present is about 50m infront which is about a wave to wave length. The aim is to have the boat and the anchor on crests and in troughs at the same time.
We are pretty much stuck here and it seems that we get the worst of the weather at night too which is much more stressful, hoping the boat looks after us and rehearsing what to do if it doesnt.

Content of grab bag is as follows.
Spare radio, sat phone, hand held GPS, compass, nuts and raisins, water,torch, spare batteries, passport, hand held flares. We also have a life raft which carries more water, flares and is of course shelter.

We are ready to get going but know that before we can progress we have to endure this situation a little longer. It is only temporary. Mick is outside at the moment watching waves not a lot else to do and waiting for a brew I promised him before i started writing this.

We are in good heart together and even sleeping in the small space have agreed that as long as our outside hip is against the side of the boat we cant move over anymore. At times we have even slept. I don't do sleeping anymore just listening.

Whenever anyone in these conditions does go outside we always wear a lifejacket and a life line so we are always fastened to the boat. Not easy when i visited the bathroom earlier today and in the lurching boat nearly chucked it over the oars. That would have tested tempers! I'll read this to Mick now and see if he wants to add anything but it will be done later as he would have to take off all his waterproofs, life jacket and i would have to do the opposite to make room for him.

Looking forward to telling you about sunburn.

Wednesday 8 February

The conditions here have been horrible with 20ft + waves and west force 5/6 blowing all the time. All in the wrong direction.At the moment we are taking it in turns to sit out on deck to give the other a chance to sleep??? or at least stretch a little.
We know the forecast is poor until the end of the week so we are pretending to tough it out. The truth is awe re a bit low hoping that we can get rowing soon. All the time we have a concern about the boat when it gets into big, confused seas as its at its most vulnerable then. We are being pretty battered at the moment with spray and rain coming and us both hot and sweaty in the hutch. Someone told us about naked rowers -  we are the same but under full waterproofs and life jackets and we don't do any rowing just surviving.

Tuesday 7 February

Tim and Mick had tried to row for at least two hours in poor conditions when they realised that they were not able to make any progress at all. The waves were getting bigger and the wind was now approaching 6's, perhaps 7's and seemed to be getting stronger all the time. They deployed the sea anchor and decided that they would both have to take to the cabin and wait for the worst of the storm to pass.
The cabin is tiny and is full of essential equipment that takes up quite a bit of room such as the electronics, rations, personal equipment and the life jackets !
They need to keep the hatch door closed much of the time to prevent them from being swamped but  open it from time to time to freshen the air. If the hatch door is closed then the boat is self righting.

Update supplied by the UK based by support staff.

Monday 6 February

Yesterday we struggled to make much headway against a very confused sea and a growing SE wind. It began as an easterly then overnight more south crept into the wind. This means that the wind blows from the south and prevents us making any progress toweards our waypoint roughly on 25 degress north 25 west.

We rowed non stop for 24 hours but eventually put out our sea anchor and got some rest. The sea anchor is a huge parachute layed out in the sea to try and stop the wind blowing us a long way back where we have already rowed.

We have had breakfast and the wind is still SE force 5 we are doing jobs around the boat, cleaning, sleeping and looking for a change in weather. We don't know how long we will have to wait for the wind to change, but always optimistic.

Sunday 5 February

We are having a hard time of it at present contending with South easterly winds which are trying to drive us northwards. We just have to plug away until we get the more favourable easterlies or north easterlies. Sea state is also very confused, rollers going one route chop going another.

Everything else on board is fine water maker still performing and the sun is shining, nights are surprisingly cold.

We are finding that the most stable position requiring less adjustment to steering is with the wind on either of the rear quarters.

Friday 3 February

At present we are about 145 miles out from the last land with loads to go, but very slowly we are establishing a routine that will work. The weather is good at present but we are always aware that the ocean has a darker side. If we can keep doing 30+ miles sea miles a day now, we hope that we can increase that when we reach the trade winds belt in about 20 days.

Its too long a time ahead to say more than we are on our way and working our socks off to complete.
Its 22.00 and one shift each to go before we stop rowing for the night for 4/5 hours and just let the boat drft.Its the only way to survive the routine if we get enough rest. The last shift was a pleasure though with a calm sea, fair breeze, music on the Zen (ipod but different) and steering by "The Plough". Saw a large ship in the distance but she didnt answer our friendly VHF call. The rowing today has been good apart from my shoulder and my hand blisters.

Wednesday 1 February 2006

Tim made contact from his satellite phone at about midnight to say that they had fixed the watermaker and were now well on their way.

Their position at that time was about nine miles past El Hierro. This means that there is no way back. The ocean currents and the prevailing winds mean that they are now on their way across the Atlantic and will soon be out of sight of any land. The sea was a little choppy but conditions were fine.

Mick was rowing whilst Tim phoned and they have decided at this stage to row an hour on and an hour off. They feel that this will help them to retain their energy whilst they are still getting used to the weather and the sea. After about ten days this could change as their rowing fitness improves.

When asked how it felt, Tim said that it was by far the hardest thing that he had ever done and he was really having to dig deep into his reserves of strength both physically and mentally. He also added that Mick, despite having suffered from seasickness, was also as determined as ever to achieve the crossing.

29 Jan 2006 - Day 1 to Day 4

Date: Tue 31 Jan 06 21:53
From: Mick and Tim
The weather was finally kind to us and we awoke to clear skies and a gentle wind from the North. We soon decided that this was to be the day.

Final preparation were made and by midday we were ready for the off.
Goodbyes to Liz and Anna, to Graham still puzzling how to fit a mountain of gear into Puffin and sort out his sat phone.

Liz filmed us as we passed out of the harbour entrance and onto the ocean.
We were finally off.

Rowing one at a time we headed south for a while to clear the headland before setting course to a point to the south west of the Island of El Heiro 65Nm away. We were soon making 2.5Knots with a slight tail wind and light swell. As with these things the clouds moved in our tailwind became a headwind. Anyway steady progress made.

We were surprised how quickly night fell and this poor preparation led us to suffer an exhausting night rowing against weak headwinds in a confused sea. an instant reminder about the challenge ahead.

We were both finding the routines hard and feel that more food and rest is needed if steady progress is to be made. Tuesday night was a little better but our old bodies complained bitterly and there was no wind help rowing through treacle. in the morning we then decided to fill our water bottles from the water maker and found it was still very salty. Despite Mick trying to sort out the problem we decided to head for the small isle of Hierro to repair it before leaving for the main crossing. Watch this space for what happened. Mick setting off to find replacement parts and Tim trying to find a mooring that didn’t damage the rowlocks on the boat…

Thursday 26 January

So we are standby, unfortunately the wind is set up to blow us off to Algeria, Not really what we want. Anyway all the team have been working really hard to help prepare the boat for our original departure date of 25 January. Thanks to the team Liz and Anna, Pat and Lisa and especially John and Avril who thought that they were having a holiday.

The wind is still from the West but expected to swing around to the NE on Friday or Saturday. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for all the messages of support and poems we have received, can´t hope to respond to them all but they mean a lot.

We are not alone, Graham Walters is also on the point of departure with Puffin his single handed row boat making our boat look palatial. Lot of encouragement and advice on surviving the row from a bloke who has already rowed the Atlantic three times!

Wednesday 25 January

Tim's departure has been delayed due to bad weather.  The boat is being winched into the water today and likely to be Friday when they can set off.